Ravings of a Random Mind...

Last week was Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Hebrew calendar. This year, I don't belong to a synagogue community. In past years, I was either teaching in one, dating someone whose family was very involved in one, or lived in a town where there was only one beit in town. This year, I was adrift. Kind of fitting, as this is also the first year I'm living as a single fellow, and on a sailboat, no less. Sort of last-minute - literally the day of - I ended up being rounded up by a friend to attend Erev Rosh Hashanah services at the Hillel at UW. I've been there previously, as I used to be involved in the local "bridge group", JConnect. It's meant to "bridge the gap" between college involvement, and getting married and settling down in a synagogue to raise a family. It's purpose is to keep young professionals (mid 20s - 30s) involved in the Jewish community. This year I turned 38. Rosh services went well. I was with friends, and the rabbi is very f...

This last weekend I went to see the new Guardians of the Galaxy film with my friend JMc. Before the film, we decided to get dinner, and since he's new to Seattle - recently transplanted from London - and there are a number of places I haven't yet been to, I took the opportunity to suggest DragonFish . It was close to the movie theatre, and I'd always walked past it on my way to someplace else, thinking I'd make a point of going later. Of course, later never really happens unless it's on the calendar. I arrived early, put my name in for a table, and was seated outside on the patio. The weather was nice (I'd just spent the afternoon at the beach), the sun was still up, and it was quite warm for Seattle. When JMc joined me a few minutes later, we commented on the lovely weather, "How often do I get to sit outside in Seattle without a cover?" The waitress came by and took our first orders - we didn't really decide to do a sort of tapas, one plate a...

Summertime was always my favourite season. Specifically, the beginning of summer, when the world is just starting to really warm up, and the whole summer lies before you, ripening with possibility. Opportunities abound, nothing is planned, and everyone is drunk with freedom. My birthday is at the beginning of summer, which adds to the festive atmosphere; like I get to kick off the summer celebrating my life, and then get to go out and live it.  This summer is different. This summer I turn 38. This summer I am single, again. I have been single now for three weeks. Three very long weeks. It isn't that I am not used to breakups. This one is different. For whatever reason, this is the first time that when it ended, whether by me or him, this is the first time that I wasn't able to turn around, walk away, and move on. This is the first time I have been haunted by the ghost of him.  This is the first summer where I am not excited by the possibilities that lie ahead, because I am sti...

The idea of this was that it would be written more as prose, but that it should be read more as poetry. As such, some of it is symbolic, a bit disjointed, sort of stream-of-consciousness. _______________________________________________ The other day I was walking past the University commons, and I thought about what might have been. How much I miss you, and how I would have done things differently if I had them to do again. The different choices I would make to keep you from leaving. I kept going back further and further, changing the timeline again and again, until I got to the point where we met... and I kept going. How different our lives would have been if I could go way back, back before we were both damaged by those we'd been with before we met. I went all the way back to my High School graduation, these 20 years gone. If I had gone to NKU right out of school, and known what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, instead of allowing others to dictate to me what I should be ...

I do not believe in Perfection; in fact, I firmly believe in Imperfection. Not as a goal to achieve, but as a reality of the world in which we live. No one, and nothing, is ever going to be perfect. This is not to say that one should not strive to better one's self; quite the contrary. One should always seek to improve one's self. Not to be perfect, but to be a better version of one's self than previous. In Judaism, we have 613 Mitzvot (commandments). Basically, every time in the Torah (the first 5 books of the Bible - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and Numbers) where the text reads "...and G-d said 'Do ______'", or "...G-d said, 'Do Not _____'", that is a Mitzvah - "Commanded by G-d" - to do, or to avoid doing these things. It is quite impossible to do all of them, especially as a great number of them deal specifically with rituals to be performed only by the High Priest in the Temple in Jerusalem. These Temple ritual...