Five Years Ago July

Someone searched the words "the temple that sherman siff is the rabbi of" and landed on this story, which I wrote about my dear rebbe, Rabbi Siff. For some reason google linked not only to that post but to all the archives of July, 2005. I don't look at my recent keyword activity often (really) but I've been curious lately (because due to the greatness of Rabbi Pesach Oratz Z"TL people have been googling his name on the heels of his passing on erev Yom Kippur and for the moment my blog is one of the main places where he is cited).

While I had July '05 open I looked around a bit and found some points of interest to me. It was the first summer I blogged and I put a lot of thought into things I was writing about and sharing for the first time.

Here, I cite the song Shades Of Grey and a commenter reveals that for a long time it was her favorite song. Here, I wrote about the importance of listening to mussar from anyone who gives it to you, and jack agrees. In this post I take notice of a poem entitled Notice by Sreve Kowit (which I discovered in Poetry 180). Here, I make the startling claim that I've never had a bad day in my life (I remember my dad commenting off-line on this one). Here, I post right after having seen the play Primo, I recommend reading about this man and his life.

In this one I wrote of rabbis and received a comment from the great writer Rochelle Krich. This one contains an interesting thought from Rabbi Yaakov Neuberger and references two of my closest friends. In this one I write about a topic close to my heart, what most people call memory and I call living a moment so deeply that you live inside it forever.

In this post I speak about most of my best friends being Rabbis and I thank my dear friend Richard Kirsch for getting me into the senior camp scene, I am forever grateful. Here's a story about a young man who left yeshiva to enter business and signed a "contract" with The Netziv.
Peter Himmelman's words have helped me a lot, perhaps never more-so than through his song Raina.
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In July '05. I first tried out the haiku chain. I also wrote for the first time about the tension between keeping a private diary as well as a public blog.

On July 17, 2005 I cited the quote which I don't remember ever hearing before but liked as I just read it as if for the first time: "Don't be too sweet or people will eat you." Here you'll find a tribute to Saul bellow. For one of my favorite stories click here. For one of my favorite poems ever check out this post.

I wrote a three piece post about my Hebrew name, Natah: (1 - 2 - 3 ).

Inside

p

From a child

Stays the I

You now peek

Find unique

Still wrapped gifts

So many ifs

(-July 2005)