I began this journey 39 days ago with such high hopes and big intentions. Went through harvest of achievements, and farewells to what and who is gone, made lists of what I want to repair and focused on intentions for the future that will make me happier, more focused and alive.

מה לא הספקתי  לתקן במסע הזה לפני ולפנים? עומד, הנני העני ממעש, נבוך בשער המקדש, על סף יום הדין : מלא בושה וכלימה על כל מה שלא הספקתי למרות שרציתי וכל הטובות שלא גמלתי וכל הפחדים שהתגברו אצלי על השמחה

While some pious Jews swing a live chicken over the heads of their loved ones during the pre Yom Kippur ritual of Kapparot that takes place today, my father, during my childhood, preferred a check book. My mother remembers cash. It’s been a while since he’s done it.  It’s an odd ritual no matter what – fowl or fish or cash – the concept is left over from ye Jewish pagan days of magic as a tactile, tribal hands-on substitution.  All the ‘bad stuff’ from this past year is transferred into the designated sacrifice – live animal or amount of money, which is then recycled to feed others in need. Something like that.

 It’s not so hard to understand the harsh human call for austerity. There is a  need  -I feel it in my gut this morning – to execute tough measures in response to prior greed. This happens all the time and in many means and ways, not always the most healthy and helpful. Take technology, for instance. In the Ultra Orthodox world this morning there’s a top-rabbinic call for burning Iphones (!) – those are seen as weapons for destruction of the will and mind. They have a point there. (Never mind that the Iphone5 is now ridiculed and hated for terrible Map App which is the fallout of the Apple Hubris Project – it is still the current icon of excess, too much distraction and the bringer-on-of-sin through too much information and the temptation to click here and there and there again. And never mind that workers’ conditions do not improve oh so far away in China, as they basically slave to supply the sleek smartphone to the rest of us who look the other way.  And never mind that where you burn smartphones you will end up burning people too.)

עברית בהמשך

She was brought up with the best of manners and it always shows. We’ve worked together on various projects for a few years and the word that best describes her is ‘gracious’. Earlier this week I got a thank-you card from her, beautifully hand written, thanking for  a gesture of appreciation on my part in some such way, stamped and addressed and mailed, like in the old days. Full of grace.

rub your belly

There were moths in the kitchen. here and there, there and then, I’d crush them with little pity, cleaned up better, didn’t pay much attention. But in the last few days it was suddenly apparent that there were more of them – way more. An infestation. A quick search through the pantry (this was done already back in June) revealed more of them, and more of their corpses, and then, voila, a perfectly sealed box of rice that once opened revealed a revolting factory of moths, dense with larvae or whatever these little critters are called when they are young.