Starting Over

B"H
It's Elul again. Again.
I'm in New York again. Again.
Only this year, everything is different.
I've left my childhood behind, and I am moving on.
When I was a young girl, maybe nine or ten, I used to dream about reaching this point of my life. When I would dress up fancy, and have an apartment in the city, and live with friends, and work, and then one day I'd meet someone and fall in love.
Now I'm here.
And I'm scared and excited and a bit lost.
I have the apartment. I have the friends. I have a job (Finally!). I (almost) have the clothes. And one day, I'll meet someone.
But that day is still a ways away. As much as I'd love to fall in love, I am not ready.
I have one goal for this year. It can be summed up in two words: Grow Up.
In detail:
I have to pay bills, make flights, buy groceries and cook for myself. How would I take care of my husband and my children if I didn't know how to take care of myself?
I want to be a writer. That means I have to write! It's no longer just a hobby, or a talent that my teachers praise. I want to write and have people read what I write. I want to do something with it.
I don't want to compare. It's poisonous. I am thrilled by the thought of being "different" than other girls because of my background. And yet, I envy the way another girl dresses even as I turn my nose up at her "Crown Heights look".
I'm giving myself six months. Six-month trial period is standard, isn't it?

We're all starting a new year. For me, this year is really new. A whole new life. I'm not a schoolgirl any longer. I'm something unfamiliar. Just - me.
I have a chance at fulfilling long-held dreams.
Wish me luck.

Gimmel Tammuz

B"H
Tuesday will be Gimmel Tammuz.
It's a time when a Chossid is supposed to think of their hiskashrus to the Rebbe. A tip from one of my teachers was to make it personal. What has the Rebbe done for YOU? How has he affected YOUR life?
So I thought about it. And (not surprisingly) I came up with quite a lot. Here is the chain of events that I came up with:
1) My parents became frum:
If my mother hadn't met Chabad, she might be Conservative, and living in Seattle.
If my father hadn't met Chabad, he might be liberal and living in San Fransico.
They might not have met.
If they had (somehow), they might not have had me. (I'm the third child).
If they had met, and had our family, they might have raised us in a completely secular lifestyle. And had I been raised like that, would I be anything like the person I am today?
2)My parents asked the Rebbe, and went to Berkeley:
If they had stayed in Crown Heights, I would be (shudder) a Bais Rivka Girl.
If they had moved to Seattle, I might have met my best friend much earlier, and our relationship would be completely different.
If they had moved to LA, I might have gotten involved in the wrong crowd of friends, and who knows where I'd be now.
3)I went to Bais Chana High School:
I met my best friend.
I realized there was a Chassidish World out there.
I applied to Chitrik.
4)I went to Chitrik:
And everything happened there.
Now I'm here.
There's more. So many details, so many that I don't even realize the source of all of them. I was born a Chosid. That means I was handpicked. Chosen.
Now I have to ask myself, "Am I doing everything I should to justify that choice?"
And I have to deal with what the answer is.
Gimmel Tammuz. Tuesday.
May we merit to see our Rebbe physically right now!

I'M DONE!

B"H
It is now Sunday. I am continuing the trend of all-nighters in the computer room. However, tonight is something new.
I am done.
THANK G-D!
It was hard work. It involved a lot of late nights/early mornings, coffees and Cokes, and a lack of studying for finals.
But now it is finished.
And as the saying goes, it was "Worth It".

Late Night... Er, Early Morning Contemplations

B"H
It's a beautiful morning. The sky is gradually lightening to an eggshell blue as the day dawns. Soon, the morning dew will evaporate from the leaves of trees and grasstems, as the sun burns ever brighter. The eggshell blue overhead will darken to a brilliant azure.
It's 6:43 Am.
I haven't yet been to sleep.
Such behavior leads to various results:
1) Heightened sense of humor - at this point, everything is funny, including the two finals that I have not yet studied for, and my friend who is asleep on the floor of the computer room.
2) Tendency to stare off in the distance, searching for words - at this point, English is no longer my first language. I'm not sure what is, though.
3) Belly-button contemplating - this involves deep philosophical thinking, the kind that only occurs during the wee hours of the morning.
It's a known rule that the best conversations take place at 3 Am, and the best contemplation occurs approximately three hours later. Unfortunately, the conversations usually exhaust the participants, and the oppurtunity to make use of this maximal contemplation time is sadly wasted.
It's a wonderful thing that I have the fortuity to be able to take advantage of this prime contemplation time.
Let's not waste a minute.

I have been dreaming. Snatches of dreams that run through later thoughts and present themselves as memories. I have dreamed so strong that walking down a street in Jerusalem caused me to catch my breath in familiarity.
My dreams are a gift. I do not dream every night. I treasure those times when I awake, the sweetness of a dream still on my tongue.
Are dreams truth? Or just recycled images, wasted sounds, that a powerful mind has stored up to release upon the subconscious?
There are stories of others - people just like myself, neither saint nor prophet - who have dreamed true.
But I?
My dreams?
Sometimes, they seem to be whispers from other worlds, spoken in the language of my other lives. At othertimes, they are mundane and foolish.
Perhaps they are the mistranslations of messages from my eternal Soul.

The Gate

B"H
I walked out of the computer room, my body aching from hours spent sitting and staring at a screen. It was 9:40, and I had been there since 2:45. My bag hung heavily from my shoulders, and I shuffled through the dark courtyard on my way to the brightly lit, fluorescent green gate.
It was locked.
I stared up at it.
Frustrated thoughts flew in a familiar pattern through my head.
Why do they always lock it?... It's our gate!... I don't have the energy to walk all the way around.... Should I climb over the gate, like the last three times this happened?Lechatchila Ariber, right?
Tonight, I was too tired.
I began the long trek back to my apartment. Stars shone brightly, pinpricks of light in a velvety black sky.
A few words whispered across my mind:
"Why do you always go to the gate when you know it will be locked?"
Why?
Well....
Um...
Another whisper:
"Why did you always think that you couldn't change certain ways you think?"
A door opened.
I've been in seminary the whole year, "changing". And don't forget, "growing". Thank G-d, I have changed. I have grown. But there are somethings that I just haven't been quite ready to give up. Certain thought patterns that I haven't quite managed to overcome. Attitudes that didn't quite get uprooted and replaced.
But a day or two ago, a couple of things happened. Little puzzle pieces fell together and a new picture emerged. I realized what I really wanted, and what I'd have to do to achieve my desires.
In the light of this new realization, those thoughts and attitudes retreated to the shadows.
They are still there. I'll still have to fight them. But I no longer feel that they are my only option. So tonight -
I won't be walking down to the green gate.

Midbar Year

B"H
It is 3 AM! And Avraham Fried is blasting from the speakers on my computer (unfortunately), the girls are ordering pizza, and I'm taking a break from editing farbrengen notes to write this. I'm still working off the fumes of the two coffees I had about two hours ago. I keep burning my tongue on those... but they taste SO good.
It's always like this at the end of things. Normal life, which includes things like sleep and food and moving around, is canceled. Instead, life becomes centered around coffee, late night conversations, and hysterical laughter when Chana Leah falls off her chair. For no reason. Schedules go crazy and attendance in class becomes a suggestion instead of a requirement. Ahh, the joys of youth.
However, discussing the vagaries of my life in seminary is not the purpose of this post. In fact, I wanted to comment on leaving sem.
One of our madrichot said this at our weekly farbrengen:
An explanation given for the Jew's desire to stay in the desert, instead of entering Israel, is that the desert was actuallya place of spiritual inspiration for them. They were given the Torah there. They built the Mishkan there. All their physical needs were provided for, and all their energies could be focused on the study of G-d's words. Why would they want to enter the 'Holy' Land?
Immediately upon entering, they would have to involve themselves in the unpleasant task of conquering its inhabitants. They would eventually have to divide up the land, and settle there, devoting themselves to back breaking physical labor. They would have to plow and sow and harvest. They would have to make their clothes, and keep them clean. (I wouldn't have wanted to do my own laundry either.)
The Jews at that time would have prefered to stay in the desert, surrounded by the Clouds of Glory, with all their physical needs taken care of. They would have loved to devote every waking moment to the pursuit of G-dliness.
What they failed to realize at that time was that this was not what G-d intended. He has a plan. A prescription. The way to reach Him is specifically through being drenched in all that 'distasteful' physicality that the Jews wanted so desperately to avoid.
It is at those times when a Jew is most involved in the daily pattern of his regular life, and he raises himself above it to fulfill a request of G-d, that he is most connected. It's when you're sitting in psychology class, hanging your wet laundry, forcing down another bureka or savoring a hot coffee - all with the consciousness that all the physical things you do are not for yourself, but rather for HIM - that you have achieved the highest spiritual levels.
After all, there's nothing really special about sitting in the Clouds of Glory and feeling G-d's presence. I mean - Duh! If you don't feel G-dly at that point, you must be spiritually DEAD.

So -
Seminary is the desert. It's been a place of inspiration for us. It's been easier to connect, easier to feel our desire for G-d, our desire to grow.
But -
We have to leave the cocoon of seminary. We have to abandon the sheltered world that we've been absorbed in this year. We've been sensitized, focused. And now we return to our families and friends, as new people. We have to move on into the real world, of jobs and rent and bills. It's scary. But that's what we've been working toward this year. That's where we will really fulfill our purpose. That is where we will actualize everything we have learned this year.
Out There.

Of course, the Jews ended up staying in the Midbar for 40 years..... Shana Arbaim, anyone? ;)

Dropped in A Black Hole

Bs"d
I haven't written a word for weeks. This is a symptom of the seminary effect caused by being in the bubble, on a mountaintop in Israel, making my best efforts to become semmed out. Also the fact that I share my computers with 75 other girls.
But there's only 3 more weeks, and I will be free!
Never mind that I'm not sure I want to be. Leaving seminary is going to have more impact on me than I'm ready to accept. I'm leaving an entire world, one to which I will never return.
I'll be back in Israel, yes, but seminary?
No.