THE BRAVE NEW LAND

The Serenade! It feels as if we've been climbing for generations upon generations to get here … and we're still not there yet. But … since we worked so hard over the years to get there, I just can't help but to ask, "Where is "there," anyways?" Are you lost yet? Don't worry, soon enough you will be … and deep in the desert of oblivion, salvation, and ultimate redemption … screeechh! Wait a second! That sounds just too loosey goosey for me. Let's back up to the week before cleaning the spring Khumetz … um … you don't know what a khumetz is, you say? Don't worry, khumetz is mostly irrelevant until it comes time to clean it, and it's too late to start now … or is it? No matter, let's continue. Let's start with khumetz. Essentially khumetz is the stuff of this paragraph, except for a couple of sentences, some at the beginning and this one at the end, which we just arrived at. This story really begins while shopping

Study of the Foundation Stone Having just come down from Purim, I find that the chaos I’ve created is trying to unhinge itself from me. It’s hard to let it go. Chaos, it seems, is a kind of safety net that I can use to hide from the world. We all do it, you know … at parties, dance clubs, bars, or any social gathering; though, if we don’t have some kind of spiritual underpinning to our worldview it’s easy to get lost in all the chaos. That’s why I like Purim so much … I think. It allows me to compact my chaotic thoughts and feelings into a sanctioned spiritual event that has historical precedence, plugging me directly into a tradition and a social fabric that can help to build the world with. It’s a weird, oxymoronic idea, right? Building the world with chaos… But you have to remember that when God built our bubble of existence He started with Tohu vaVohu (formless and empty), essentially chaos. But it wasn’t really chaos, was it? There is always a seed before the expansion