Its a strange time to sit down and write, 5:15 in the morning, I've just negotiated the night buses home and they were packed with hard working people going off to low paid jobs.
I've been thinking a lot recently, about me, my life, who I am and where I'm going. I've been thinking about what it means to be a jew and I've been consulting rabbis and attending shule.
I started wearing a yamulke some months ago, then I bought a Torah and I have been reading it. Initially it was because I wanted something, some greater sense of jewishness, coming as I do from a family that might be described as "ultra-secular". However, strange things have been happening, odd coincidences, things just being "right" perhaps.
I moved into my new flat, which is beautiful and quite the best flat I have ever had and I found myself very close to Stamford Hill, a Chabad Lubavitch heartland, it has galvanised me and I am continuing the path of the ba'al teshuvah, the returning jew. Its not easy, I am covered in tattoos and I have never had any event in my life which makes me a jew, it was just the way I was born and, for most of my life was just about culture, food and humour in roughly that order.
Tomorrow I am going to buy my first tallit katan which I intend to wear from now on, I am also getting in touch with a Lubavitch rabbi and have begun to feel increasingly drawn to the Hasidic life. This may be very difficult for some of my friends to read, I'm sure that you think that this is just some kind of crazy phase and maybe you're right, but it might not be, it might be the thing that I have sought all my life, it may be the summation of a life spent wanting to belong while, at the same time, wanting to be apart.
Who knows and who can tell where this will take me. All of our experiences evolve us. Everything that has ever happened to me, good or bad, every decision I have taken and every action that has had effect upon me has made me who I am. Without the pain and the suffering I would not be who I am, I would not be where I am and I would not have the friends I have, this is the way of life.
I will be the same man, albeit with a beard, the same friend and, I hope, a much kinder and happier person.
That's enough for now, I have to go to bed, its late and I have much to do tomorrow, I still have no phone and have to do all of my change of address business, but the tallit katan will be the first point of call.
M
I've been thinking a lot recently, about me, my life, who I am and where I'm going. I've been thinking about what it means to be a jew and I've been consulting rabbis and attending shule.
I started wearing a yamulke some months ago, then I bought a Torah and I have been reading it. Initially it was because I wanted something, some greater sense of jewishness, coming as I do from a family that might be described as "ultra-secular". However, strange things have been happening, odd coincidences, things just being "right" perhaps.
I moved into my new flat, which is beautiful and quite the best flat I have ever had and I found myself very close to Stamford Hill, a Chabad Lubavitch heartland, it has galvanised me and I am continuing the path of the ba'al teshuvah, the returning jew. Its not easy, I am covered in tattoos and I have never had any event in my life which makes me a jew, it was just the way I was born and, for most of my life was just about culture, food and humour in roughly that order.
Tomorrow I am going to buy my first tallit katan which I intend to wear from now on, I am also getting in touch with a Lubavitch rabbi and have begun to feel increasingly drawn to the Hasidic life. This may be very difficult for some of my friends to read, I'm sure that you think that this is just some kind of crazy phase and maybe you're right, but it might not be, it might be the thing that I have sought all my life, it may be the summation of a life spent wanting to belong while, at the same time, wanting to be apart.
Who knows and who can tell where this will take me. All of our experiences evolve us. Everything that has ever happened to me, good or bad, every decision I have taken and every action that has had effect upon me has made me who I am. Without the pain and the suffering I would not be who I am, I would not be where I am and I would not have the friends I have, this is the way of life.
I will be the same man, albeit with a beard, the same friend and, I hope, a much kinder and happier person.
That's enough for now, I have to go to bed, its late and I have much to do tomorrow, I still have no phone and have to do all of my change of address business, but the tallit katan will be the first point of call.
M
No comments:
Post a Comment