| Email Edition | ContactEach moment is different. Here are some of mine.
“HELL, BOY, THE ONLY DIFFERENCE between us is that I know I’m asleep. Now if you want to see a real miracle, hand me that wrench.”
(IN FACT, THE WHOLE “REASON” I “am” “religious” in the first place is only due to a direct perception that the Universe is, in some essential and indescribable sense, alive and conscious. I can’t help seeing that, feeling a part of it, and celebrating.)
(Also, as much as I love science, I’m more fascinated by rituals and customs, folkways, manners, stories, legends, myths, folklore. I see religion as structured spirituality, and its practice one of many attentive arts of living. And I like the perspective of participating in something bigger, older and more continuous than I am. I guess that’s one reason why some people play music or build stuff or deeply study anything.)
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THIS IS LESS A POST than an invitation to share hidden landscapes.
Within the past year or so, and due partly to an almost chronic drowsiness, I began noticing that a significant number of my dreams are set in a handful of recurring locations. The dreams themselves are not repetitious; that is, the circumstances within each setting is different, but the settings themselves are the same — lending to the experience a curious sense of permanence or visitation:
- At (a) Renaissance Pleasure Faire, in the large tree-bordered parking lot; the Faire often recedes as I approach, or is over by the time I make it inside
- A bustling airport, to which I arrived via BART, and whose airplanes have couch seating
- Beach resort alongside a straight highway
- “The towns south:” a forested drive through a number of small California towns, eventually leading to a series of Southern California beach resorts
- High rise hotel with a series of terraced balconies; restaurant at the top
- The Endless Cemetery (ornate crypts & sarcophagi)
- An unknown suburb of Sonoma, sometimes on fire
- Back corridors of the world’s biggest shopping mall
Am I the only one with assigned seating? What are your recurring dreamscapes?
RESIST ENTROPY.
IT’S NEVER EASY TO SAY “goodbye” — so I’ll say “thank you” instead.
Due to current synagogue economics and demographics, I won’t be teaching at Shir Shalom next year. Obviously, I have mixed feelings. But mostly, I would like to thank the parents of this community for allowing me to share the light of Torah and tradition with our next generation of Jews. (I would especially like to thank our now-former education director, Susan Jebrock, for hiring me in 2000.) It’s been a rewarding, terrifying, enlightening, fascinating and instructive 10 years, and both a privilege and an honor for me to serve in this fashion.
Of course, I will continue to be available as a Torah and liturgy tutor (for pre- or post-b’nei mitzvah students). And Ann & I will still hold “France Street Torah study” in our living room on alternate Saturday mornings.
The Talmudic-era Rabbi Chanina said, “I have learned much from my teachers, and I have learned more from my colleagues. But I have learned the most from my students.” Baruch Hashem, praise G?d, for letting me learn that too.
“WE’LL GET THERE.”
“PEOPLE’D BE A DAMN SIGHT more polite to each other in this country if they had to work a year behind a retail sales counter. At least, all my retailer friends think so.”
WHEN FACED WITH A NEW Thing, it is often better to pay close attention to the Thing in question than to whether or not it fits your notion of Thingness. (N.B. This is not as obvious as it sounds.)
“I’VE NEVER WISHED A MAN dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.”
Whether or not Mr. Twain actually Why Clarence Darrow said these words I do not know. But for those having difficulty cheering one more death, yet no compulsion to weep for the decedent, it seems to capture the moment nicely. (Although Ann‘s “Osama Been Gotten” is nice too.)
– Neal, whose Facebook page today reads “…Having a surreal experience. Fortunately, so is everyone else.”
NO MATTER HOW ABSORBING OR rewarding the discussion concerning Jedi philosophy, training and practice, someone’s always going to say, “Dude, it’s only a movie.”
A FRIEND OF MINE FROM long-ago “nights we tried to die” (in Jim Morrison’s eternal phrase) opines, via Facebook, that he is now “too fat to wear … (his) “Too Drunk To F*ck” T-shirt.
I want a T-shirt of that.
1. THE FOLKS AT WHOLE FOODS’ Sonoma branch were trying to do the right thing. Last week, I noted that their refrigerated Passover display contained some sixers of He’Brew Beer (unaffiliated with but heartily endorsed by Metaphorager.Net). Fermented grain being Passoverly inappropriate, and wanting to save the store some face, I mentioned this to one of the managers (“This isn’t offensive, just incongruous to knowledgeable shoppers.”). As of yesterday, the beer is now gone — but the other freestanding display now features cocktail rye breads and two boxes of hamantaschen.
(I love hamantaschen, which are poppyseed-filled Purim cookies. I love them even more on Purim, which holiday occurred two weeks ago. But I really love the human impulse to make the customer comfortable, even if we don’t know what her comfort level is.)
2. If you’re in the Sonoma area tomorrow, join us for “painless Torah study” (no experience necessary) from 10 am to noonish. Our portion is Tazria (Leviticus 12:1-13:59; Haftorah: II Kings 4:42-5:19). Call 707.933.9430 for directions.)
3. I am way pleased to announce that PunkTorah.Org has published one of my divrei Torah at http://punktorah.org/dvar-torah/ (the one titled “D’var Tazria & Itchy Skin Diseases”). PunkTorah is what you get when young people play in the vast Jewish landscape with today’s tools, yesterday’s texts and eternal enthusiasm. (They have an online minyan, or prayer meet, three times a day!) Nachum-Bob says “check ‘em out.”
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