Still More Thoughts

When we are really wondering, we don't say "just wondering." Because to wonder is an awesome thing.

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I am pleased with the recent posts I've done in which each paragraph is a new, stand alone unrelated thought from the next. And yet.

I just searched within my blog the words "Nicole Krausse and yet," looking for what I wrote about learning from Nicole Krause that "and yet" can be a full sentence. What came up from the search included her name, but not in relation to "and yet."

What came in the search I just did is this post. I called it "Write of Passage." It includes a rich dialogue of comments from fellow writers about what they blog. Like many things we remember as eras, I'm not sure how long it was that this blog community existed for. i look back at it as a golden age of a blogging world I was blessed to be part of. I look back at it as at a dream.

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When I was kid, in the seventies, shows like Leave it to Beaver and players like Mickey Mantle seemed to have been from a time a million years before mine. I just realized today that my shows, like Happy days, and my players, like Cleon Jones are now from 40 years ago. That's much longer a period than the gap of about twenty years that was between me and the fifties. Mind boggling.

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They say you should only learn Torah from a Rebbe who is like a malach, an angel. It is human to be concerned about one's own learning and spiritual growth. Angels are stagnant, they don't move, are not concerned with their own upward movent, but only with their missions for others. Maybe the idea of having a teacher akin to an angel is that the teacher needs to be focussed on you and your development rather than on himself.

This idea was presented in a talk I heard over Shabbos from the Rabbi Elye Yitzchok Brisk, Rabbi of the Toshnad Heichel Torah U'Tefilla. He cited it in the name of the Chasam Sofer, emphasising the detail that a malach is refered to as an omeid - one who stands in place, while a person is described as a holeich - one who moves forward: At the time that your teacher is teaching you he needs to be standing still himself and helping you move forward.

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I think I'll always remember how Nicole engaged me in conversation before signing The History Of Love, despite the long line behind me, so that she could personalize the signature. Then she inscribed it "For Neil With Luck + Hope."

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This six year old post just found me. It's about summertime, and how it ends. I really enjoy and miss the comments of old, particularly from Lavender Garden.

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"Once upon a time there was a boy who lived in a house across the field from a girl who no longer exists... They collected the world in small handfuls... Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering..." - From The History of Love, by Nicole Krausse

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There's a part of all of us that longs to know that even what's weakest about us is still redeemable and can ultimately count for something good.
- Mister Fred Rogers