Blogging Inspired

I want to thank Pearl for making me cry. And for teaching me Torah, wisdom that I did not know. Pearl posted a presentation she gave in memory of her and her husband's fathers (and more). It is beautiful.

I am writing (hopefully) pre sleep. So much happened today. I decided that a rabbi I know has dyed his hair. I'm usually clueless about things like wigs and colored hair but this struck me as a definite - did not see that coming.

LSD came up in two different talks with kids today, the idea of people have religious experiences through drugs (I once heard Rav Wolbe speak of young man who told him that he's become frum via an LSD trip). One student told me that he saw a program about a church in the sixties that gave LSD to kids to help with their indoctrination. Someone else told me a story about a kid who got high on pot and had a religious experience and has been religiously committed ever since. Someone else shared a story about a kid who did acid a lot of times and is now institutionalized due to serious damage done.

A childhood friend opened up to me tonight in surprising ways. I thank G-d for friendship. In passing he said something fascinating about what the approach in his home when he was growing up was and what it remains to today. And and and...

Since Scott died a month ago several of my high school classmates have been struck with thoughts of sadness and mortality. In Scott's zchut a reunion is on for this Thursday night. Stay with us.

There's something about mortality that gets to me. Did you know that the Chile earthquake was five hundred times more severe than the Haiti one. And yet the loss of life was much greater in Haiti. Theories abound including that the building are built more securely in Chile. They took great precautions after a major earthquake forty years ago.

A fellow blogger signed off for good a couple of years ago. In his farewell post he referred to blogging as a form of screaming off of rooftops. I see it as something else, something I know when I see but find hard to articulate, something like what Pearl's post epitomizes. (Also check out Pearl's photo gallery. My favorite picture is the one of of her father holding a photo of what I presume to be his grandparents).

Good night and G-d bless

me to write a book that's called

Good Night And G-d Bless

b

P.S. My Purim diary style posts are over at parshapost. Take a look if only for the story about the rabbi who paskened and modeled exemplary middot for me on Purim night.