For All This Rubbish and More

I had high hopes for Pesach–in fact, I had planned in my head an amazing series of posts in emulation of my week in December covering Chanukah: I had planned to speak about the Seder on Friday evening, about being a slave on Saturday, share a Pesach story on Sunday, talk about freedom on Monday, reminisce about traditional Pesach songs on Tuesday, delve into my personal history of the holiday upon Wednesday, and give thanks today.

As you can see, school has once more successfully kept me away.

It’s not that I haven’t wanted, it’s that I haven’t slept. For nearly the past week, I have run so wild that I have missed deadlines, missed meetings, and missed entire homework assignments by convincing myself I will only sleep for a few minutes before getting out of bed to finish my work and then instead sleeping the entire night. It hasn’t been hell–I’ve enjoyed most of what I’ve, I’ve had plenty of excitement, and I love life in general–but it hasn’t been the happiest time of life. I’ve been critical upon myself, hating myself for my own failures, but unable to figure out how to best pull myself to succeed, how to hold onto everything without letting it all fall.

Thankless Thursday

Thursdays are awful days to be thankful. Thursdays are not Fridays when the week is almost up and the weekend is right around the corner to look forward to. Thursdays are not Saturdays when I get to sleep in. Thursdays are not Sundays when a new week begins and there’s freshness in the air, inspiration everywhere, and new potential bleeding forth from every orifice of the world.

Thursdays are not Mondays when I get to return to the interesting topics discussed in my classes and see my friends after a lonely weekend. Thursdays are not Tuesdays when I get to go to my creative writing class and indulge myself in my deepest passions. Thursdays are not Wednesdays, the busiest day of the week, when I get to see all my friends in the SGA and then, in the evening, be thankful for surviving all the chaos that inevitably erupts every Wednesday.

But Thursdays are Thursdays.

Thursdays are just deep enough into the week to feel exhausted and overwhelmed, but not near enough the week’s end to look forward to relaxation or another week rising on the horizon. Thursdays are Thursdays–and Thursdays are awful days for thankfulness.

Awfully Whetted Strife

By nature I’m a very trusting person. By nature I give everyone the benefit of the doubt. By nature I strive to be kind and compassionate and for the most part, I think I succeed.

So when the knife came out, I never imagined it’d be directed at me.

On the Wall

Last year I made some miserable mistakes in making my goals: There were too many and they were too broad. I had no way to measure my success or to celebrate small victories along the way. One good thing I did was post them here–that gave me an audience who would witness my shortcomings if I failed to achieve my goals. Then again, I didn’t check back on them enough–and that’s got to changes, too.

Anyways, today starts the new year. And with the new year comes new goals for myself, new endeavors, and new opportunities.

Will you join me?

Once Upon a Time

There’s such a thing as irony, and when we lack it, we’re anemic (and that’s a thing called paronomasia, or punning, or wordplay). But no matter what we call it, what’s at the heart of my personal irony today is the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I have never seen it. But I have read parts of it, and I have read parts about it.

It began the second or third day of my Creative Writing class. We were covering screenplays and we were reading an example, and this was the movie my teacher decided to bring in. We read the opening of the script. We watched a couple clips on YouTube. We–rather, the people who had seen it–talked a bit about it. And then I ran to the library, checked the stock, and saw we didn’t have it. Ergo, I did not watch it.

Where’s the irony, you say? Here it comes, wait for it….

Silent Night

The semester is over and all through the house, not a word is spoken, not even a shout. No pages are turned, no pencils are moved; no papers frantically ferried to professors behooved. Instead there is silence, a deep blanketing veil, a solemn rest now overcoming those students whispering, “Farewell.”

From their shoulders are lifted great burdensome weights, and tall and mighty now they stand and await. In days’ time, in weeks’ time, they’ll find peace at last; and once more, and once again then, classes will begin at first light. But now, now they rest, all wrapped up in bed, and tired and lonesome, no thoughts in their heads. In silence they slumber, in silence they wake, and through silence, to silence, their futures they make.

A Landmark Revelation

Life’s like a box of chocolate. Life’s like flying a kite. Life’s like a ladder. Life’s like an adventure. Life’s like a roller coaster. The metaphors are endless (and the metaphors are really similes while we’re at it). Whether we don’t know what we’ve got till we take a bite, whether we’ve caught the wind or we’re falling from afar, whether we’re climbing over a precarious angle, forging forward to a new frontier, or simply riding the world through a series of ups and downs and one too many loops than any of us wants to go through, life’s got a lot to give us.

This post marks my two hundredth post as the Writingwolf.

My life through this point has encapsulated each of these ideas, but these last few days, they’ve been one of the wildest rides I’ve ever ridden on. And let’s just say I made it around the turn okay.

Cleavage

It’s not necessarily what you think it is.

2.13 He posed this question to his disciples:

Look about you and tell me, which is the way in life to which one should cleave?

Rabbi Eliezer said: a generous eye;
Rabbi Yehoshua said: a good colleague;
Rabbi Yose said: a good neighbor;
Rabbi Shimon said: foresight;
Rabbi Elazar said: a generous heart.

Said he to them:

I prefer the answer of Elazar ben Arakh, for his view includes all of yours.

I love reading the Hebrew when I can understand it, and since I’ve begun studying my modern Hebrew textbook again, I’m beginning to understand it a little bit better, too, which is always a good thing. Granted, most of the Pirkei Avot is written in Biblical Hebrew (or Aramaic on occasion, if I’m not mistaken), so there are bound to be slight differences in how I interpret these words, given a few centuries’ worth of language progression. It’s a slight fault, I’ll admit, but it makes it no less fun or educational, does it?

For Less is More and More is Less

This one’s a bit long, but it’s the last we’ll see of Hillel for a while, so if you’re a fan like I am, I shall bid you read this one well.

6.8 Another favorite teaching of his:

More flesh, more worms;
More possessions, more worries;
More wives, more witchcraft;
More maidservants, more lewdness;
More menservants, more thievery;
However,
More Torah, more life;
More study with colleagues, more wisdom;
More counsel, more understanding;
More good deeds, more peace.

One who has acquired a good reputation has acquired something for himself (in his lifetime);
One who has acquired Torah has acquired eternal life.

It’s fascinating, isn’t it, how much he likes lists?

H is for Ḥaverim

These past four days I was attending the ISJL Education Conference, the ISJL being shorthand for the Institute of Southern Jewish Life, the organization that provides Hebrew school curriculum and other services to over sixty congregations in thirteen southern states. It was a gathering of at least a hundred, if not two hundred, Jews from more cities than I’d ever heard of and it was wonderful.

We had a fellow from the ISJL who visits every few months. It’s just part of the program, you could say. One thing she told me often is that I must, that I absolutely without a doubt had to meet the ISJL staff rabbi, one Rabbi Marshal Klaven. He was unlike any other rabbi I’d ever meet, she said, and I’d like him.

I did like him. And he really was unlike any other rabbi I’d ever met.