23/30

6:48 PM - Just got home from work. Caught the 5:10 bus. All day blog posts float through my head, now I sit here sighing, wondering. Wondering. Wondering.

No thirty day period in our lives will ever be replicated and yet The Shloshim stand alone. I've been thinking a lot about my nails. I can't imagine that they're supposed to be a major focus of this mourning period. And yet. I've spoken to several colleagues/rabbis and looked in quite a few of the books on this mourning period (including The Book by Rabbi Maurice Lamm) and they all say that you can't cut your nails for these thirty days. They each go on to say that you are permitted to bite or pick your nails instead of cutting them properly. And then they add that you can start the rip with a tiny bit of a cut from a scissors or clipper. So this Friday that's what I did, after three weeks of not having cut my finger nails I did an ad hoc job of crookedly paring them down.

7:31 - Ate sushi, read emails, settled in, as my neighbors sang Happy Birthday and celebrated their daughter's second birthday. They're having cupcakes. If you lived here you'd know too.

I found the ad for a gig I had to cancel. You can find it here. At parent-teacher meetings yesterday several West Orange people said that they had missed me the night before. It took me a second to remember what they went. The night after the levayah I emailed Rabbi Spivak and told him that he'd have to be in touch with Richie Gold and Stu Trivax himself to finish with the final touches. My recommendation was to go on with just those two. The reviews I heard were raves. Richie is available on Facebook and you can see for yourself what high quality he is. Stu is a force of nature, one of the best comedians I've ever seen. That's the feedback I heard too. He is uniquely talented at bantering with the audience and fully committing to character. He is fearless and amazing. Why shuls so often get it wrong and book people that aren't good or don't "get"frum crowds is a mystery to me.

9:35 - Read some of Leon Charney's The Mystery Of The Kaddish. Led ma'ariv. Read an email, wrote an email. It all may sound innocuous, but none of it is. Nothing is.

A few months ago I finally replaced my old phone. I got a new phone with a built in answering machine, so I got rid of the old answering machine. And now when I have a new message it is no longer introduced by a deep voiced man saying, "Sunday: twelve o'clock, A.M." Now the baritone voice announces the day and date precisely, correctly.

On Friday December 25th I had off from work, for the sake of the bus drivers. So instead of getting up at 6ish and aiming to be in shul in school in Jersey by 7:30, I had latitude. I could cross one of a few streets and make a minyan at 7:45 or 8:00, 8:10, even 8:30. Sometimes cliches are true and on this morning off from work it felt true that the world was mine. Then my phone rang in the other room and the message woke me. I am haunted.

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10:38 - Helped a student with an assignment on Mishnayot Brachot. Emailed a parent back about a student. Spoke to a friend who called about a shiva visit. Learned part of a piece of Sichot Mussar (the old, typed edition, the only one I have with mark ups in my handwriting that I don't recall scribbling). Rav Chaim Shmuelewitz wonders how after seven makkot that led him to plead "Uncle," Paroh has the audacity to have Moshe and Aharon thrown out of his court. He also notes that it was after Makat Shechin that Paroh was so moved that had Hashem not hardened his heart he would have let the Jewish People go. There was something about the boils. What was it?

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11:00 -

Good night and G-d bless

My mom SSRIP

Please ask how I am