"Life is bigger; It's bigger than you, and you are not me."

In the winter of 1980 I took off for Israel. In the summer of 1980 I reluctantly returned to America. In the summer of 1983, after three years of college, three years thinking every other second of flying back to Israel to learn Torah full time, I took a one way plane to Israel. I spent the next five years studying in Jerusalem. I started smicha-rabbinic school-there and came back here to finish it, thinking that I had to.

I left many belongings, mostly sefarim - sacred books in a machsan - storage room. I had those who I knew would be happy to help me go through the somewhat annoying process of rescuing some books for me (thanks for getting my Kahati and Aruch HaShulchan Josh Rudoff). Most of the books, and more, have been lost in time.

Once when I visited my old school I saw a framed picture, which I had put in storage, hanging in a dormitory corridor. It was mine, I took it back, though first I checked to make sure that sure enough my name was still there scribbled on the back by the framer. I stayed in a room in the old school that had a closet with my name inscribed inside it.

In '88 I was a dorm counselor. Josh Sindler was a YU college student on my floor. He is a talented photographer. Elliot Rothschild had shared two of my years in yeshiva with me. In my twenties, I was an "older guy" in yeshiva. My chavrutot - learning partnerships - were usually with guys a bit younger than me and I was a bit more advanced in learning. Elliot and I covered a lot of ground together and he was a joy to learn with. Despite his double curriculum and extra full day of study, we met in the YU Bet Medrash and studied regularly at night. One evening Josh caught this picture and gave it to me.

I just found this photo in a pile of papers. I have a fear of scanning that I am trying to overcome. Thankfully this time it just went through (as a colleague replied when I asked him how the Israel night he organized last week went, you could say "it was butter"). Sometimes life is like that, sometimes things go ahead with ease. I was going to just post the picture. Then I felt I had to write something. And that Michael Stipe line about mixed measurements when it comes to sharing comes to mind again.