The Fourth Night of Chanukah

It is now a few minutes after midnight and I felt like writing down a few thoughts and ideas before I retire for the evening. Tonight is the fourth night of Chanukah and after I lit the candles, I sat there for a moment and watched the newly lit candles begin to burn. There is something very special about watching a newly lit candle burn. A flame has the power to destroy if left to burn at its own devices, but a flame that is controlled and guided by a steady wick has the power to heal and to transform. Chanukah is a time of the year in which we increase in holiness with the burning of an additional candle for eight consecutive nights. On a personal level, each candle represents not only another step in holiness, but another level of healing and transformation that I am achieving.

The four candles represent for me the four differnet countries in which I lived so far during my 37 years in this incarnation of me. Each place that I have lived has been both magical and painful in its own unique and special way. I wish there was a way to experience life's magic without also experiencing its pain, but this was not the contract I signed before my soul descended into my current body. Yes, I do believe that we know the path ahead of us while we are being nurtured and are developing in the womb, but we forget the directions on exactly how to navigate this road the moment before we enter into this world. Chanukah is a time to remember at least for a little while the direction we each need to take in our own way to find our way back home, and the candles that burn from the menorah are the lights we use to guide us along the way. Each night the way is illuminated a little bit more to make the going more about seeing than about guessing which way to take.

This way home for me has always been connected to love and finding the right woman to share the way with. Each country in which I have lived has brought its own tales of what this journey of finding my way home through love has been like. I have recently discovered that the map I have been using all of these years has unfortunately been leading me even further away from the spiritual home I so long to find again. This is the part of the journey in which I am really praying for God to allow my own menorah burning in my heart to provide enough light to guide me on my way safely for the rest of my life so that love can flow smoothly and not get caught in a traffic jam that will delay the commute home even longer.

My Chanukah began a few days early this year when my Higher Power allowed me to see how my relationships from the past have greatly affected my attempts at finding true and everlasting love in the present so that my future could shine with the eternal light of the menorah's glow. It was a very powerful and a very sad moment when I saw how my mother's misdirected attempts at guidance and love have created in me a nagging need to be safely held in a woman's arms. I had no way of understanding as a small child that my mother had her own issues to work through and that she fell into a depression filled with rage and resentment when she was unable to make peace with the pain that created a huge vaccum in her scarred heart. I fell victim to her abusive tirades and felt the need to protect myself in anyway that I could.

The Chanukah candles burning brightly in the adjacent room have shown me that for true love to ever come knocking on my door, I must learn to first truly love myself. I have internalized years of emotional abuse and neglect but the day has arrived for me to begin a new chapter in my search for love and that search begins with me first learning to nurture and love myself. I no longer want to hurt the ones that I love because my emotional pain is burning stronger inside my soul than my personal menorah. My prayer for today is that the soft light burning this Chanukah extinguishes the hurt that I have done onto myself and onto others through making my life a living amends of learning how to truly love again.

The Second Night of Chanukah

Tonight is the second night of Chanukah and I just completed my lighting of the Menorah. I never even dreamed that I would be back in Los Angeles, yet here I am lighting a menorah for the first time since I vowed never to return to this city. Yet against all odds, I am back in the place where I was raised from the time I was 12 years old until I left to Israel when I was 20. I have to say that when I went to Israel, I thought all of life's issues would magically disappear and I would be able to begin again a new life there free from the worries and concerns I so desperately wanted to leave behind, and for a time in Israel, I was able to leave the worries and concerns caused by a very stressful home life behind. Then two years into my time in Israel, I was reminded just how closely the problems from home remained even though I was almost half way across the world. By June of 1997, I said goodbye to both of my parents and I also said goodbye to the light that we burn on Chanukah that represents eternal hope even in the darkness of our deepest struggles.

I fought the good fight for another five years, but Israel is an impossible place to live without the light of the menorah burning constantly in your heart. I left my Judaism behind in Israel because I assumed that once the light from the menorah stopped burning in my heart, it was never meant to burn again. I thought that the light was taken from me because somehow I was undeserving and that I had failed in my mission to bring light into this world. These were very difficult and very sad years for me because so many times I looked deep into my soul for the Chanukah light to guide me through the darkness and all I found were tears where once the fire strongly burned.

Chanukah is a holiday that expresses the idea of God doing for us what we are unable to do for ourselves. It is the time of year that we remember that we were very close to giving up what is most precious and most important to us: our Torah and the belief that God can lead us in any battle that we choose to fight. But sometimes, the forces of darkness appear so strong and so oppressive that we are tempted to give in to simply experience a moment when our souls are no longer that battle ground in which the forces of light and darkness choose to stage their war. I know from personal experience that there are times I want to be left alone from the daily grind of this struggle and to simply be allowed to live hibernating in some dark hole far away from it all. I also know that I have the power to choose not to live like this and instead let the light of Chanukah guide my way towards hope and eternal love.

This year, Chanukah is very special to me because I have the opportunity to heal past wounds that have been allowed for too long to take my light away. It is time to forgive the wrong doings of those who wronged me so that I may no longer wrong the ones I love in retaliation for misdeeds that occurred in the past. I have realized that forgiveness is not about forgetting or condoning the actions of other people, rather it is the light that burns in the menorah of my heart.

The Falling Tree

The air above tastes so wonderful to breathe
As opposed to the death that has been alive
And for so long has sustained me underwater
As afraid I have been to surface and enjoy the warmth
Of a summer's day or the chill of a winter's frost
For the elements above the surface are unpredictable

An innocent child once walked through the forest
Merrily laughing away while admiring a tree in the distance
When suddenly there was a loud bang and then a piercing cry
And no longer was this child merrily walking through the forest
For his innocence had been driven far beneath the ground
By a tree falling in the distance, dislodged from its roots

The sunlight disappeared that day and no longer was the boy
Able to merrily laugh his life away in the thick forest
For he never knew when a tree he so admired
Would unpredictably and for seemingly no reason
Violently crash to the ground as it lost its sway
From a place far beyond from where the boy could see

The air above tastes so wonderful to breathe as
The little boy that has been buried below
No longer enjoys the death that has been the life
Which has sustained his soul from within drowning waters
That have eerily flowed underneath the head of
What appeared to the little boy as a giant falling from the sky
As I learn today to enjoy the majesty of another tree

The Stretching Rainbow

A season in the sun dances before my eyes
As if a rainbow cunningly glows from
Within the approaching shadows of clouds
That formed from a dark and lonely place
And have moved within the outer edge
Of my flickering candle that pulsates
A radiant breath of fresh air that repels
The impending coming of the ominous clouds

Just for today I can enjoy the magical colors
Of the bright and radiant rainbow that echoes
A blossoming flower rising above the thawing ground
As I breathe an everlasting gratitude for a love
That is destined to outlast even the darkest of clouds
That hovers above my head threatening to retract the rainbow
That so effortlessly emanates a beautiful reflection
Of both Heaven's revealed and hidden loves

So the season continues to dance and the
Candle continues to sway in the wind
Moving to the rhythms of time that
Are giving birth this very moment
To a soft and vibrant flower so humbly blossoming
That not even a dark and ominous cloud
Pointlessly hovering over my head can
Rain a single drop of despair upon the gratitude
Pouring from my heart and reflecting a defiant glow
As a rainbow stretches from high above stretching
From one dark and ominlous cloud to the next

The Melting Heart

To love is to hold a heart in your hands
And embrace its raw stillness with a gentle touch
That fills eternity with a beating breath
That pulsates a burning flame that kindles
From deep within a timeless candle

Her love is like a tiny drop of wax
That disolves away and loses its form
Within the timeless burning of the eternal flame
That has darkened my vision as blindly I watch
The last of my lover's heart melt away

That ceaseless tapping is the sound of an eternal flame
Prematurely knocking on the gates of Heaven's door
As skyward her flame has soared far beyond the limits
Of our timeless love we shared in one single moment
As the raw stillness suddenly leaps from my embrace

I had a dream that was more like a vision
In which I was floating as if in a dream
Yet I was blind as if I had lost my vision
And had only my trust to guide me
As clouds surrounded me with a glow
That stretched out like a hand to lead
As I struggled once again to find the love
That only a moment ago was in my grasp
Yet was stolen away by clouds that insisted
On love that remained forever floating in a dream

The blue sky above reflects a gentle light
That also glows in the distance as waves below
Crash against my elevated feet that remain suspended
Like a dream floating away in a deep sleep
As the lover returns and takes my hand and
holds it to her breast so that my fingers
Can touch the heartbeats of her love
So that I never forget that clouds that glow
are like a dream that forever floats
beyond the shadows of true love below

And clouds that forever float in distant dreams
Are like wistful waves crashing against the shore
Reflecting glimmers of the sun from the sky above
As the moment for love instead races back to sea
And the dreams are left to float without ever finding home

The Angry Wave

The dream gets lost in words which
Aimlessly disappear into an endless fog
That hides a peaking mountain away
In a thick cloud of gray mass that threatens
To heap a torrential flood of despair onto the
Deepest and most intimate dreams of lovers
Gently walking together hand in hand along
The sandy shores of an isolated beach as '
Towering and merciless waves continuously
Explode upon impact against the gentle sand
Whose delicate softness dances like a candle
Reaching out to embrace the impending explosion
Of an angry wave that blows like a grenade

The dreams have lasted a lifetime and now
The time has come for the endless fog
To reach its end and to say goodbye
To the mountain whose peak is peaking
Far beyond the mass of gray clouds
Whose threat to heap torrential despair
Onto the deepest and most intimate dreams
Of lovers gently walking together hand in hand
Has instead fallen into the rush of a wave
That no longer carries with it the desire
To cruelly crash against a kindhearted shore
As a dancing candle has reached out its arms
To embrace the fury of an angry wave

Surrender

It has been more than two months since I last published anything on this blog. I have had plenty of good intentions about sitting down at the computer and putting together some thoughts, but each and every time my fingers were about to touch the keyboard, I became distracted by one thing or the other and the impulse to write soon passed into thin air. The reason why I have found the necessary discipline to write is that I have discovered a topic that has sparked the flame of interest vital to any quality piece: surrender.



This word has been floating around my mind in various forms since I arrived in Los Angeles four months ago. The fact that I was even open to the idea of returning someplace that contained so many painful memories was an act of surrender, although I did not realize it as such when it first happened. Perhaps this is why it was effective, for the simple reason that I did not see it coming, for if I had, I do not think I would have been remotely open to the idea of returning to this city. But I remember the exact moment of surrendering to the idea that I wanted to live here again. It was a cold and rainy day here, one in which the drops kept softly falling from the sky, sometimes harder and sometimes softer. I was in Los Angeles because the school at which I was working sent me here to be trained in the Hebrew Language program we were using to instruct our students. Two weeks before I came to Los Angeles, I had the unfortunate experience of getting an ear plug lodged deep into my right ear. I thought that the natural process of time would dislodge the ear plug, but much to my discomfort, the foam found a resting place in my ear beyond the reach of my thick fingers. I woke up on the morning after I arrived here with my ear ringing louder than it had it weeks and in more pain than I was willing to tolerate. Fortunately, I did not mind finding any excuse to miss out on the tiresome training sessions that I was sent here to sit through. The closest hospital to my location was the Encino Hospital on Ventura Blvd. It was my lucky day because I did not have to spend the duration of the morning waiting in the emergency room, which would have been even worse than sitting through the training sessions. I was the only patient in fact, and the ear plug was removed with a narrow pair of tweezers about an hour after I first arrived. When I left the hospital, I was literally singing in the rain over the fact that the ear plug was no longer blocking my hearing. A funny thing happened at that moment: I made my peace with this city and I felt like it was time to come back. I also realized that this was the same hospital that had been the last place I ever saw my father alive 13 years before.



I never said that surrender was easy. There are times in fact that surrender is very painful. To make moving back to Los Angeles a possibility, I had to give up on some things that I would have never voluntarily walked away from. The most important of these was my teaching job that for two years had become the center of my life. But through a series of misdirected and misunderstood relationships, the wheel of losing my job was set into motion. The speed of the spinning wheel accelerated so fast in fact despite my best efforts to slow it down that I was relieved of my teaching duties on the last day of school.



Heartbroken I was, yet hopeless I was not. Somehow, I knew that there was a higher purpose to these misfortunes, and if I could only hold out hope just a little bit longer, I would soon start to see this light within the darkness. The going at first this past summer however was not very easy because I knew that I could no longer find courage and hope through the ability to stand my ground and battle through some of life's greatest tragedies. For me to find true happiness from now on, I knew I needed to find courage and hope through a different force, one that I call surrender, even if it meant saying goodbye again. It is through surrender that I have learned to love, forgive, understand, listen, and feel true compassion for others. I have become the person I have wanted through this calm, gentle, steady, and softly forceful energy that guides me more and more each day as I slowly gain the confidence and trust to allow it to lead each and every step I take.



My dreams are coming true less as a result of fighting my way through life and more because I am able to calmly breathe my way through challenging situations. Acceptance comes with surrender, as does the understanding of what my responsibilities are to myself and to others. I am more thoughtful in my actions and less prone to overreacting to situations beyond my control as I have embraced the warmth, beauty, strength, and most importantly the acceptance of this amazing and miraculous force that I label surrender.

How my love of sports became a Jewish Value

I have been an avid sports fan my entire life, not necessarily of playing any particular one, but rather of following the action on the field. Especially during baseball season when school was out for the summer, I would locate the sports section of the newspaper delivered to my house each day and find a quiet space where I would be undisturbed for at least an hour so I could practice my labor of love of tracking at bats, runs, hits, and runs batted in. More than watching any sport, I enjoyed reading about the action as it appeared in box score form. I loved the precise details of which players helped their team to win or caused their team to lose. A box score offered no congratulations to these winners and no consolation to these losers. It simply reported what a player did or did not do on a given day in a specific sport and quantified his performance into a sequence of numbers.


Nothing was able to diminish my love for sports as I grew away from my scrawny childhood and into my turbulent teenage years. By this point however, distractions such as family dysfunction, making friends crazy, chasing girls, and ditching school were stealing almost all of time away from watching sports. I no longer sat transfixed in front of a television and watched historic moments such as Joe Montana passing to Dwight Clark in the end zone in the final minute of what proved to be a huge dagger in the heart of my beloved Cowboys for years to come. I was too out of breath throughout my teen years to sit down and enjoy watching sports on TV.

This situation though of not having the mental capacity to enjoy sports began to change in Israel of all places. It was while living in the Holyland that I would stay up through the wee hours of the night and enjoy a sporting event such as the Super Bowl and the World Series. It was also in Israel that I began another passion: teaching. I spent six years studying at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and began working with kids in classrooms in 2000. Truthfully, I first got into the profession because I wanted something practical to do after completing my college degree in Jewish History and English Literature. It would take 10 years for me to fully appreciate the impact my teaching could have on kids, and it came through nothing in particular I did in the classroom, but rather something that happened on the football field.

Part of my duties with my previous employer was to supervise the combined fourth and fifth grade class during the last hour they were in school on Thursday afternoons. Usually by this point, they were restless and wanted to go outside for extra recess. I was just as restless as they were to leave the classroom at this stage of the day, so I was always in search of interactive and educational activities. In was on such a day that this brilliant idea flashed in my mind: teach the kids how to get along and have fun together through playing football.

The students were of course excited to go outside and I gave them the choice of either playing basketball or football. They were not allowed to bask in the glowing sun, so they needed to choose one of these options. About half the class chose football, which meant that we would have a game of five on five. To make the game fair, I picked the teams, having the students count off, "one, two, one, two'" until each was assigned a team. I also decided to be the quarterback for both teams, thinking this would be the best way to make the teams more even, since I unintentionally put the best athletes on the field on the same team.

The game was predictably a chaotic disaster from the opening kickoff. It was officially two hand touch football, but this did not prevent kids from flying around and tackling each other. There was either an injury or a hurt feeling after each play. The losing team was upset that their counterparts kept scoring each time they touched the ball while they were unable to catch any pass to them, no matter how perfectly thrown. By the time the game was over, most of the children were angry at me for allowing such a travesty to substitute for quality teaching. Four children needed to make a detour to the nurse's office on the way back to class and I was politely asked by my superiors to make a detour into the principal's office. All agreed it was not a wise idea to teach Jewish Values through a hastily organized football game, except for one student.

A special award is given at the 5th grade graduation ceremony to the student who best exemplified living by Jewish values while studying at the school of my previous employment. It is a prestigious honor bestowed on the child who most consistently demonstrated character traits such as getting along with others, acting with dignity, and showing a deep conviction of faith. Before the award is presented, each of the 5th grade students graduating reads a short prepared speech in which they describe some of their most memorable moments at the school. The girl who would later win this award gave a touching speech that I will always carry with me as a badge of honor. I sat in the audience among the rest of the school community with a strong sense of pride and even a touch of vindication when she gave me a special thanks for being her Jewish Studies teacher, specifically mentioning that football game her classed played that Thursday afternoon. She reaffirmed my belief that a hastily organized game of touch football could indeed be a powerful vessel through which to teach the Jewish values I wanted to teach her class that day.

My Day at Franklin Canyon

I celebrated my 37Th birthday this past Friday with a visit to Franklin Canyon, nestled in the Santa Monica Mountains, just west of Coldwater Canyon Blvd. The most direct way to Franklin Canyon from my house on Robertson and Airdrome is straight down Beverly Drive, which also happens to be the center of the Beverly Hills shopping district. Images of cars and pedestrians competing for tiny areas of space on this crowded road convinced me to go north on Robertson Blvd instead. Being unfamiliar with the area, I was unaware of the attraction of the local shops that line this busy thoroughfare. I then thought I would outsmart traffic and make my way to Sunset Blvd. through side streets, which on any other day would have been a brilliant idea. But on this day, there was road construction down the little side street I turned and I was routed back to Robertson Blvd. My next futile attempt at dodging the afternoon traffic was to turn west on Melrose Ave. I watched as pedestrians casually strolled past my car parked in traffic and envied their enjoyment of the warm sunshine of a perfect summer afternoon.

My first goal was to cross Sunset Blvd, which I finally did after 30 minutes. My next goal was to reach Coldwater Canyon Blvd. which is the windy road that leads to Franklin Canyon from Beverly Hills. Traffic was just as horrific however traveling west on Sunset, so I decided to set my own course for Coldwater Canyon. The broad shoulders of mansions hovering over the threadlike streets of North Beverly Hills hindered my ability to navigate these tiny canyons as I cautiously drove up and down sharp, harrowing inclines. After turning left and then right, and again left and right, I eventually found a small residential street that intersected with Coldwater Canyon Blvd. However, I still needed the kind assistance of a security guard sitting at his post in front of a gated community before I finally arrived at my intended destination an hour after I left home.

At this point, I wanted nothing more than to find a quiet spot and enjoy the beautiful afternoon sun glistening through the canyon. When I finally took my first step out of my automobile, I was immediately intoxicated by the bright canyon colors that reflected the beaming rays of the sun back into the blue sky above. I started walking down the road in the direction of a body of water called Heavenly Pond. I strolled under the protection of tall oak woodlands providing shade to the mindful traveler with its tall branches reaching over the road and joining hands like lovers walking along together in a quiet meadow. The road eventually twisted out of the shade and into the sunlight where I spotted a young boy wearing a colorful kippah that covered his entire head, similar to the one I was wearing. His mother turned her head as I walked by and she beamed, "Look someone else who keeps Shabbat." I smiled at her and graciously replied back, "Shabbat Shalom."


I walked right past the hidden entrance to Heavenly Pond and continued on my way. Not wanting to retrace my steps, I once again looked at my map and I located Sycamore Meadow which sat on the shores of Wild Pond. This seemed an appropriate destination, since a meadow usually provides the perfect scenery for a writer to express his erupting thoughts and feelings as its open spaces of soft green grass are adept at absorbing the lava that flows from the exploding volcano of a restless heart. A paved pedestrian path led from the loop road and into the enclave of Sycamore Meadow resting on the shores of Wild Pond. I followed this path which led to a secluded area shaded by the thick branches of a towering oak woodland. Awaiting me was a picnic table shrouded in secrecy underneath the low laying branches of an especially majestic oak tree. I ducked to avoid a collision between my head and one of these mammoth branches as I took my place at the picnic table.



The twinkle of the late afternoon sun glowing off dangling green leaves brought a particularly serene harmony to Wild Pond at Sycamore Meadow. I found the calm inside my heart to unleash a fury of bottled up emotion onto a generous piece of legal tab paper while the pond not more than 10 feet away from the table quietly basked in the warmth of a midsummer's day. When the totality of my wrath was fully spent I stood to stretch my cramped legs. I slowly walked over to the pond where I was met by a child running excitedly towards its edge. "What is he wearing on his head," she asked her mother who was trailing her daughter only a few feet behind. The older woman looked up, took notice of my head covering and greeted me in a warm and approving manner, "Shalom".



Minutes passed and the excited shrill of the little girl was soon silenced by the tranquility of Wild Pond as a mother duck arrived at the scene with a duckling closely trailing behind. There was the sound of splashing every few seconds when the mother duck quickly bobbed her head in and out of the motionless pond as she caught in her beak small bits of vegetation floating just beneath the water's surface. The mother than located her baby and fed into his beak the provisions she provided. The child next to me took three steps forward towards the pond and I said to her, "Be careful so you do not scare them away." She stopped in her tracks, but by then the mother duck and her baby had waddled away, sufficiently nourished from the calm and serenity found at Wild Pond at Sycamore Meadow nestled in Franklin Canyon.

It was now time for me to leave. I was still upset though that it took me an hour to travel seven miles and that I persisted in finding a way through the busy streets of West Los Angeles without getting stuck in the maddening traffic when perhaps it would have been better to go the way I knew, no matter how congested the roads. But sometimes in life we do not choose our journeys, rather our journeys choose us. If I had not driven the exact route I took or stopped at one of the many red lights I encountered on the way, I would have just missed crossing paths with a woman and her boy whose religious traditions I share. I also would not have stood hypnotized on the banks of quiet water next to an inquisitive child and her family as together we witnessed the mesmerizing spectacle of a mother duck feeding her young. So, would I have traded the long, windy, and unpredictable road that led me to Wild Pond at Sycamore Meadow on my 37Th birthday for a safer and more familiar way? Ask the same question to a mother who has just endured 12 hours of torturous labor giving birth to the newborn baby she now cradles in her nurturing arms.

Los Angeles to Missoula

Los Angeles to Missoula

It is exactly 1212 miles from Los Angeles, CA to Missoula, MT. The most efficent way to drive is to take Interstate 10 east to Interstate 15 north all the way until Interstate 90 and then head west. It is a two day drive if you decide not to floor it for an all nighter or stop at every somewhat interesting sight and rest stop along the way. The most laborious part of this trek is the short stretch of highway that begins where the 101 and 10 intersect, contuning all the way until the joining of the 10 and 15. It is recommended that a driver bring along a wide array of stumulating entertainment to avoid implanting his head in the steering wheel, as it can take easily two hours to traverse this 37 mile stretch of industry riddled highway.


The heaven that awaits the driver who is able to endure this torturous expanse of interstate however is worth the time wasted sitting in still traffic. Once Interstate 10 east gives way to Interstate 15 north, the traffic and the factories magically disappear and are replaced by open lanes of highway and mountians that cradle the automobile like a mother holding her newborn baby. It is strongly recommended at this juncture of the trek that the driver let out a long and deep breath exhaling the remaining fumes of bottlenecked traffic stuck inside his stomach. The golden red light reflecting off the jagged mountians and into the ocean blue sky during the early evening hours is the best medicine to heal the driver of his rush hour maladies.



These hours of driving bliss, no matter how enthralling, are still finite. Within a few hours, depending on how hard the driver presses down on the gas pedal, the sparkling lights of Las Vegas will begin to appear first as dimly twinkling yellow lights. Soon, the outline of the city's skyline will appear. This scene is especially impressive at night, as the bright, flashing lights of many colors illuminate the infinite attractions that Las Vegas offers. Be forewarned however that a stray exiting from the freeway amongst this glowing glitter could lead to catastophic consequences for teh driver planning to arrive in Missoula, Montana in two days.


Less than 1,000 miles remain on the trek once the flash and flare of Las Vegas diminish in the rear view mirror. It is recommended to find lodgings for the evening at this juncture. Mesquite, Nevada, a little more than a one hour drive, is a quaint little city right off the 15 where the economical driver can easily find an affordable place to sleep. Refreshed, the driver begins the next leg of the journey to Missoula preferably early in the morning. The stretch of highway from Mesquite until Southern Utah offers little distraction in the way of stunning scenery, gambling, or entertainment provided at an hourly rate. The aware driver needs to make sure though to leave Mesquite with a full tank of gas, as stations are few and far between and the ones that are in operation charge extra for the convenience of filling up a fuel tank in the middle of nowhere.



Some of the most beautiful national parks in the United States are accessible from Southern Utah. Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon offer the traveler backdrops of red rocks sprinkled with lush vegetation growing aside of gushing rivers whose white waters spill over incredible waterfalls. The driver whose has never bore witness to these magnificant sights must provide ample time in his trip to view these amazing spectacles of nature. Bring hiking boots, lots of water, and a mind open to appreciating the simple beauty of crimson canyons whose sharp ridges have been smoothed out by winding rivers passing through these natural throughways for millions of years.



Located in the north, Salt Lake City is the capital of Utah. It is the largest city on Interstate 15 north of Las Vegas and is also home to the Great Salt Lake, the largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere. Salt Lake City affords the weary, yet adventurous driver the opportunity to take in a slice of American life while reinvigorating himself from the hours of montonous and lonely driving. Located on the edge of downtown is Spring Moblie Ballpark, formerly known as Franklin Covey Field and home to the Salt Lake Bees. Tickets are inexpensive to watch the Bees compete in this quaint stadium that provides the relaxed fan with the experience of intimately enjoying aspiring Major Leaguers play baseball for a few hours. Games usually begin at 7:05 PM and are played with the high peaks of the Wasatch Mountains in the backdrop. This starting time allows for the flow of the game to naturally blend in with the reflecting light of the setting sun as it collides against the frequent flashes of lightning emanating from the mountain peaks.

If the driver of this excurison enjoys the quiet solitude of a peaceful morning drive, the stretch of Interstate 15 from Salt Lake City until Pocatello, Idaho is the perfect paradise, especially on chilly mornings when the temperature barely reaches 50 degrees in the middle of June. It is approximately a two and a half hour ride which can be easily stretched into three hours if the driver's foot decides to take it easy on the gas pedal. Low clouds obscuring the peaks of the Wasatch Mountains that follow the highway into Southern Idaho provide the driver with meditative portraits of a lush and fertile landscape watered by generous winter snows.

Once the interstate passes through Pocatello, there is a strong possibility that driver will grow impatient to reach his ultimate destination of Missoula, Montana. By this stage, he would have already been on the road for at least two days and possibly a third if he was distracted by the sights and wonders he passed along the way. He would know there are only 360 miles left and he calculates that his gas efficent vehicle can travel 300 miles on a full tank of gas. A twinge of disappointment may then shoot through his nerves at this annoying distraction of having to make one final petrol stop, which he will nonetheless admirably perform in Deer Lodge, Montana. He is heading west on Interstate 90, having bid Interstate 15 a fond and reflective farwell in Butte 40 miles behind.

The driver is now pulling off Highway 90 at exit 104 in Missoula which is Orange Street. He is hungry and tired and wants to be no place else but a restaurant which will place before him hot food fresh off the grill and a cold beer straight from the tap. He knows the perfect place and if his memory serves him right, the eatery is located on Brooks Road, just a few miles ahead. The sights of this city that is home to The University of Montana begin to trickle back to his conscious thoughts as he recollects some of the fleeting memories he gathered while living in this town for a summer six years ago. But onward he drives and within five minutes, he pulls into the parking lot of the restaurant for whose food he drove through six states to taste again. His stomach rumbles and his heart skips a beat as he enters the establishment. But before this wearied traveler has a chance to sit down, he finds one particular hard working waiter, walks over to him, and hugs the brother he is seeing and speaking to for the first time since six summers past.

Tisha B'Av

I just returned from a moving Tisha B'Av service that spoke about not only about the reasons why the Temples were destroyed, but what each one of us can do to make sure it gets rebuilt in the very near future. The point that I kept hearing was that within the destruction lies the rebuilding. This is a mind-boggling idea that states that the seeds of healing already are planted within the tragedy itself. Basically, G-d does not destroy something without first making sure that the remedy for the ailment that caused the destruction to begin with is also provided. The challenge for us is to not only understand the root cause of tragedy, but to believe that the medicine to heal can be found within the sickness itself. This message kept replaying in my head over and over again in my head tonight. The rabbis who spoke touched upon many calamities that have befallen our people, including the destruction of the Temples, the Crusdaes, the Holocaust, and even assimilation. One rabbi said that there is much good that we can do within the imperfections themselves. It takes alot of courage though to constantly attempt to bring good into something that is quite frankly not. Not only does it take courage, it also takes determination and the ability not to absorb all the pain from the imperfections you are dealing with.



The message always comes back to us as individuals and especially on a day such as Tisha B'Av, each of us is required to look into our imperfections and to understand exactly what we can do to heal and make the world a better place through first making ourselves better individuals. I have seen too clearly what the results of personal imperfection are as they have manifested themselves in what I am seeing now as resolveable conflicts that turned into unmanagable situations. I am not writing this to be hard on myself but simply to understand and internalize that often the imperfections I am seeing in others are there because they exist within me. It is easier though to see character flaws in other people than to see them in myself. I wish this was not the case, but the truth this is.



Something that could be of benefit for me would be to make a mental note of five character flaws I see in others and make a note of the exact nature of each of these defects of character when I have access to pen and paper. Afterwards, I could look at each of the things I had written and see how each of the traits that I had noticed in someone else manifests within me. I do not think this would be something easy, but it could be very beneficial. My guess is that I would begin to see common links in the deficincies I noted and I could begin the process of healing usually required to fix these defects within myself. Afterwards, I would make a list of five positive attributes that I recognized in others and then I would repeat the same process I did for my imperfections.



The first part of Tisha B'Av is very mournful and filled with misery as we recount our collective sins that have led us to be entrenched in this seemingly endless spiritual exile. It is also a time for me to look seriously at how my own imperfections have succeeded in causing their share of destruction and calamity along my personal journey. I have hurt others I never intended to hurt and made impulsive decisions which I am finding out are hard to overcome. But as Tisha B'Av progresses, its laws become more relaxed and we are able to slowly return to our normal state of being. This year is an especially good time for me to embrace this process of spiritual rebirth and awakening, as within some of the most heartbreaking moments of the past year are the seeds of healing and forgiveness, both of self and of others.

Hi there friends.
I thought I would join the 21st century and begin a blog here from LA. On this blog, I will publish some poems and thoughts related to my experiences here. I hope you enjoy!!

The wind is bellowing outside the shattered window
As a wolf howls in the distance of the cold and windy night
Yet there is only one sound I hear
And that is the beating of my tepid heart

The echoes of the howling wolf fade into
The darkness of the cold and lonely night
As she disappears into the darkness in search of food
For her pups hungrily awaiting her return

From inside my unprotected and shivering room
I take a deep breath and listen for the stillness
That signals the arrival of the imminent dawn
As the footsteps of the howling wolf draw near

I step outside to courageously meet this mother
As carefully I avoid the shards of broken glass
Scattered beneath my feet and reflecting
The gentle light of the twinkling stars above

Her piercing eyes are beaming through the shadows
As cautiously she approaches and her scowling features emerge
The mother wolf is angry as her quest to nourish her starving pups
Nears its futile and mortal end with provisions not in sight

The morning sun peaks over the distant horizon
Nourishing the dawn from the light of the twinkling stars
As suddenly the mother wolf leaps clear over my head
Avoiding the edged piercings of shattered glass

The slumbered morning awakening in the dawn
Suddenly springs to life as a gleeful jackrabbit hops
Across a grassy meadow in joyful bounds of hope
As the howling wolf becomes a mother again
Able to nourish and nurture the pups she sadly left behind