Quem Mihi, Quem Tibi

I spent the three days of Yom Tov thinking about things I wanted to post. Then as Shabbos ebbed away I started feeling that I didn't want to post right after Shabbos. I wanted to walk. I resisted both. I had some important and good phone talks. I made Havdallah, ate an oat bar, watched Andy Statman, Ricky Skaggs, Steve Martin and Wilco on Youtube. Then I walked to a walking CD I bought. Now I can hold back no longer. I need to write. On Friday night, during dinner, someone smart and funky raised the question of free will. The raiser of the question is in a psych graduate program and has a non Orthodox fellow student that bombards her with questions. The latest bombshell has to do with Moshe and him writing things before they happened. Or did he? The Gemorah addresses this and it seems that he wrote the narratives as they happened, chapter by chapter. The general issue of free will then consumed a good amount of the table talk. I recalled aloud something I read that I think is The Answer; "It's a G-d thing, you wouldn't understand." Relating to that general topic (somehow) I mentioned Alan Morinis' new book. At the start he says that we all have a curriculum which involves our weakest links, most difficult struggles. We run from our life work, but the curriculum finds us. In a conversation tonight, the question came up if G-d getting the curriculum to us one way or another is scary or reassuring. The latter seems to be the answer. It's like a parent teaching a child to walk. It's not bad thing that the parent keeps standing the kid up again It's loving and it's how we learn to walk. As these issues were swirling in my head as I read a masterful story by Alice Munro. I had no idea going in that it was about fate and free will and how factors combine together to make life. The story is called Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage. The title is from a game these two teen girls played: "Most of their good ideas were Edith's. The only idea Sabitha introduced was the writing down of a boy's name and your own and the stroking out of all letters that were duplicated and the counting of the remainder. Then you counted off the remainder on your fingers, saying, Hateship, friendship, courtship, loveship, marriage, till you got the verdict on what could happen between you and that boy." The two girls mischievously interfere with someone else's life with ill intent. They end up being the vehicle for bringing happiness (or a reasonable facsimile) to that person. This reminded me of how in the Yosef Mokir Shabbat story the way the king tries to prevent Yosef getting the king's wealth becomes the vehicle (something I've mentioned before) for Yosef getting the king's wealth. It's like how the more the Egyptians persecute the Jews, the more it strengthens the Jews. Reminded me too of how Galut Mitzrayim happened for a variety of reasons - because G-d said to Avraham it would, and because the brothers sold Yosef, and because of the Jews' assimilation, and because "we the Jews" needed to be purified and molded and on and on. The Munro story ends with a scene in which this girl's mother tells her about a happy event that happened (without knowing that this beautiful outcome was the result of her daughter's nefarious plan). "Edith was doing her Latin translation at the kitchen table...Ignoring her mother, she wrote, "You must not ask, it is forbidden for us to know - " She paused, chewing her pencil, then finished off with a chill of satisfaction " - what fate has in store for me or for you -" How can a person possibly write so well? There's something otherworldly about such writing. Anyway - over these three days I had several sweet moments and then some. On Friday morning - Simchat Torah - I walked down the hill to Mount Sinai (see here for the haiku I wrote while becoming late for my ride on the first day of school last year) while reading a story by a dear friend. While I was reading I looked up and there was the mother of one of my best friends walking the other way. She is unusually tall and always seems to hunch forward while still maintaining a dignified gait. I imagined writing that sentence as we passed and nodded - it's nice when dreams come true. On Thursday night I went to "The Bridge Shul," which in a funny twist of fate had more people than the YU Beit Medrash. It was a good vibe. And I got to speak with one of the most knowledgeable people I know. On Thursday night said friend became very upset in the YU Sukka when someone gave a dvar torah hypothesizing nastily about why Chasidim don't eat in the Sukka on Shmini Atzeret. This friend knows roughly ten thousand more times than that speaker did on that (or most any) topic. He explained things in great detail to me privately. In our wonderful conversation he cited something Toby Katz (in whose home I spent a Shabbos when I was in Florida for the wedding of a girl named Audrey who I Bat Mitzvah-ed at the Kotel) quoted her father, Rabbi Nachman Bulman, as saying at the Kotel once, as he saw a large group of Bnei Akivanics wearing casual clothes and sandals coming to daven. And he said, "If the Yeshiva world was zocheh they'd look like that too." (Something like that.) Sleep is now calling my name. So it's time to say Goodnight and G-d Bless.