THE BRAVE NEW LAND

Since I am an artist, both by training and by, Baruch Hashem, G-D given artistic genetic coding (we can just call this G.g.a.g.c. for short) I have lived my entire life with the goal of indulging the creative process. Since my third grade class with Mr. Gillespie, I have been producing above average artistic extrapolations from the world around me and from my own inspirations. Throughout the later stages of this process (about the last 20 years) I have wondered deeply about the dichotomy that seems to be present in the Torah regarding this. It wasn’t until recently when I read the first part of this apparent dichotomy again in Parsha Yitro, in which the fourth of the ten commandments which were given stated, “You shall not make yourself a carved image nor any likeness of that which is in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the water beneath,” that I began to really get a little nervous about this G.g.a.g.c. deal. I asked around a little and looked up some different translatio...

I thought I would try another free-flowing, multi-tasking, oratorical with a cool title type of blog. You see, life is starting to become normalized for us Nolls in the Middle East and I find that my mind is much less on the things that most people would think of as bizarre or unique. These things are starting to become just, normal. For instance, since I started working at the German, Christian, gas mask making factory and Kibbutz of Beit El, I have gotten used to the German people just breaking into song for no particular reason; like the other day when I heard this amazing voice echoing through the hall and stairwell. In the States, if someone was singing in public and was caught at it, they would probably stop immediately with a sheepish grin and a reddened face. Here, this type of thing is so normal that the drive-by-singers aren’t phased a bit by on-lookers. This woman was cleaning the bathrooms and was evidently enjoying the sound of her voice as it bounced around the tiled room...

Well, I guess I need to start this one with… the other day at work, I got to thinking… Naw, that’s just not gonna work. You see, this story starts a little further back then that. We went to Ephrat for Shabbat a couple of weekends ago. Ephrat is in the stachime (west bank) well, it is really about 10 minutes from Jerusalem so not really in the big bad territories if you know what I mean. My sister in law lives there with her husband Norman and her two sons Ben and Baruch. Both boys are in the Israeli army now and were home on leave for the weekend. They were completely bushed and slept most of the time so that left Norm and I to run through the much needed rain to Shul, pray, and most importantly talk about the prospect of living from the Torah. It was great… so, what about the line, ‘the other day at work you ask’? You see, when I was davening Shabbat morning, towards the end of services, I noticed something very eye-opening for me. The Rabbi was a typical looking guy (Rabbi) with a l...

When the world was young and still innocent, a few very high souls in heaven that were very close in proximity to Hashem became aware of a most tragic catastrophe that was to occur, far down below, in Gan Eden. These very few, high souls fled to the far reaches of Heaven and when they were beyond its borders, hid in a tiny little corner of chaos. The Chet (mistake) that was made in the garden would go on to stain every other soul in Heaven with its sour and unclean stench and every soul that would be born to the Earth from that time onward would also be soiled by it. These few untainted souls, hiding from this mistake in the corner of chaos, have been brought down by Hashem to give us a light to see by, but only in the darkest of times. They have given us the courage to see beyond our stomachs and front doors and to become visionaries. They were men such as Avraham, Itsik, and Yaacov and they were men such as Noah and Moshe. One day, may it be soon, the prince of these souls will a...

About one month ago, the weather started to cool down a lot. Not like in Boulder, but cold never-the-less. There is a damp breeze that can blow in sometimes, and when it does it can really take you by surprise. When we moved to the Middle East we pretty much gave away most of our warm stuff, bringing our snowboarding stuff, of course, but mostly out of a sense of sentimental attachment. We have been through one winter here, but this one really seemed to hit us hard. Maybe it was the extended (shvitah, strike) from the kids’ school that threw us all off. Maybe we were just so overwhelmed from the move that we didn’t notice the first time around. Whatever reason it was, we all got sick this year and, of course, we all handled it in our own unique ways. During the year Zach got sick, pretended he wasn’t so he could stay out all night on the weekends, and made it to about Tuesday each week, and then, oops… needed to stay home from school on that one really hard day with all the math and st...

At the end of last week, Yom Shishi (Friday) started great! I opened my eyes, said the Moday Ani Prayer for the first time (I just memorized it the day before at work), and started the laundry. Don’t worry, this is not another I lost my phone in the mechona ha’kvisah (washing mashing) story, however it does involve my bike. You see, since I am now Shomer Shabbat I can’t ride my mountain bike on Shabbat. Why you ask (for those of you non-Jews or non-religious)? Don’t ask, it is a long story that maybe I will tell another time. So, I needed to get a mountain bike ride in that day, on Yom Shishi. And it didn’t matter that it had been raining for a few days prior. I got all geared up for the rain and the cold. I had 2 liters of water, a banana, warm leggings, gloves, and a rain jacket. I stuffed everything in the Camel-Back tarmiel gav (back pack), jumped on my bike and headed up the street with Dude the dog in tow. Well, I guess I should back up a little. You see, after my blog about my b...

Last week, at a Shabbat lunch with friends and family, a momentary flash of understanding hit me and as powerful as it was for me, it left with only a trace of what it had been. I had remembered something from the Parsha of the week, Shemote, and somehow had a realization of how it connected to something insidious and entwined within our natures. In hindsight, as I recall, this flash had been building and had come from a few sources. The first source was and is, of course, an ongoing battle within me; namely, ‘What is our nature and why do we fight so much?’ Does this go all the way back to the Garden of Eden, the original sin, and the freedom of choice, or is it just selfishness about who gets to eat the biggest portion? The second source was the Dvar Torah by the Rabbi at Beit Knesset (Synagogue) on how the second book of the Five Books of Moses, Exodus, started with a list of names which indicated that it was about the people of Israel as opposed to the Fathers of Israel like in Gen...

In the heavens above, not in the fabled heavens but in the heavens that are described by our sages as the worlds above, there was once a place where the water gathered into petty and jealous pools of rivalries. The Master of the Universe had to separate these pools by putting a five hundred mile thick barrier or a firmament between them. Wait… I think I need to back up, you see, the water isn’t really just ordinary water; it is a viscous and vaporous condensation of spiritually incandescent and pearlescent… water. This is not only the water of life but the water of everything else as well. Talk about the fountain of youth! Water…I am getting thirsty… for something wet and watery… water… Ok, back to reality. You see, this story is really about how our minds work. It started with water because this is the substance that leaves our body when we activate its spiritual thermometer by engaging in acrobatic mind maneuvering. This water isn’t the normal water but it is also the same viscou...

Long ago, in a time before there was time, there was a garden. This was no ordinary garden mind you; it was a very, very special garden indeed. This was the first garden that was ever created and it was done so in an otherwise barren wilderness. There was nothing anywhere else in the whole universe, accept one thing. And that thing was (and is) so big, so large, and so timeless, that I could never use words and language to describe it. It is a thing that we have come to call by many names and all are Holy with a capital ‘H’. So, not to labor the point too much however, this story starts in a place that can only be described as everything and nothing at the same time. The ‘everything’ comes from what we see today… everything that is always all around us to see, hear, smell, feel, and whatever. And the ‘nothing’ you ask? The ‘nothing’ is also everything around us. The ‘nothing’ is something that we can not see or hear or feel. Sometimes if we are lucky we get a whiff of it though. It sme...

Deep in the burrow, the brothers and sisters were snuggling together for warmth against the damp musty air. A smell of wet fur and newborns was still evident upon entering the well hidden home under the ancient tree. The ancestors had raised all of the generations under this same old oak tree and it had born witness to all of the wonders beneath its roots. It had also witnessed the tragedies. This tragedy however, is foremost in its memory. This story is about one particular creature that had always seen the world from eyes of wonder. Burnsting was a very normal looking field mouse. He had brownish matted fur and an extra small and twitchy nose. His brothers and sisters usually laughed at him when he would have one of his moments of vision. He had a very peculiar way of noticing the small things, while never really grasping the larger ideas like the time he day-dreamt for days why the little line marching bugs would break their formation when interrupted, instead of asking himself how...