My Night So Far

7:22 PM - I just got home from work. I stopped at Shoprite on the way and have stuff to put away , but first, perchance to blog. I was greeted by two phone messages, both of them solicitations for money. In the inbox I found a message that the rabbi I referenced yesterday commented on my blog. That was nice of him. I like his approach and agree that the relationship with G-d thing is big. I think about this a lot. This is why I think Ani ledodi vedodi li is the Ellul acronym that's outlasted all the others.

I just discovered that a friend of mine got the pink slip. Major sigh. Sigh again.

On the way home I started reading Dani Shapiro's Devotion and I am hooked.

9:14 PM - I like writing in the present, and part of my present is often (always?) thinking about the past. it's not so much reliving events as having them stuck all over me like post-its. I wanted you (who are you again?) to know.

I davened ma'ariv from the amud, kaddish included.

Today is the three month anniversary of the day my mother died the first time. Tomorrow, the twenty sixth, is the day her heart let out forever.

Davening from the amud and kaddish are zchuyot for my mother, please G-d. I don't think I'm going to be writing a book about how the routine of Kaddish has been cathartic for me. Kids talk to me almost every day about their struggles with set prayers. And adults model for me every day their issues with set prayers. Heavy sigh.

11:19 PM Been on phone, been planning, been. That reminds me of a student's recently pointing out that in the poem Every Man Has a Name (in Hebrew) the last three lines are three words, then two, then one, as it describes the final name of man, in death.

I keep wanting to eat and having to remind myself that I have a general check-up tomorrow and so shouldn't eat. I don't know if it would have helped, but I would have liked it if they called to remind me (or just even told me about the not eating when I made the appointment weeks ago).

I just read this in the Kol Menachem Haggadah:

What is the meaning of the hagaddah citing the pasuk which says that the mitzrim "acted in an evil way to us - vayarei'u otanu hamitzrim" and then add as a proof that "they conspired against us - hava nitchakmah lo?"

1. Orchot Chayim says that the true meaning here is that the Egyptians perceived us as bad and therefore plotted against us.

2. In a similar vein, the Shlah says that the true meaning here is that the Egyptians made us bad, in order to influence us negatively they had to act cunningly.

3. Likutei Ta'amim U'minhagim looks at it from a different angle, saying that schemed and came up with ways to not simply treat us badly but to hurt us in any way they could.

I was recently told, "You are not a light person,"and then asked, "Were you always this way?" I answered by recalling a game that my friend Glenn Kaye and I used to play in third grade. We called it spotlighting. The challenge was to follow and copy someone until caught. I think that's a yes.

A young teacher I recently met at a meal informed me that Bronx Science is a school for gifted students. Glenn went there. But he never told me that it was for gifted kids. Another friend of mine went there and also never used that appellation. I wonder if this educator was implying that if the students are gifted kal vechomer the teachers?

Sometimes I enter and buy into the thinking of others even when I know it not to be reality. This leads to discomfort. It takes confidence bordering on bravery to stand up for and trust our own thinking. It's worth it even if in some ways it leaves us standing alone.

Good night and G-d bless

I guess there are better words

but none I prefer