What the next year will stand for?

Regardless how brave I pretend I am or how optimistically I gaze at the future, with an idiotic smile on my face, this beautiful 5774 was a year of failures. On exactly old plans, starting with this blog and ending up with the domestic mess. Nothing really went on as I was expecting at the beginning of the year. Nothing at all. 

Put into a larger life perspective, this was the most challenging year of my life and I bet will have a lot of more consequences to deal with in the next weeks and months. I'm not that naive to pretend that everything should go smoothly always, but not that pessimistic either to believe that it's perfectly fine that everything you want to do is deemed to a happy failure. 

Not even my terrible will to overcome difficulties and always survive is not it used to be, perfectly turned into small little pieces by the stubbornness to accept a very distorted reality. Probably I wanted too much and was used always to receive what I was looking for and the challenges of the last months were completely out of my usual context. 

Now, when I am done with the overexposure of the recent past, and still hope that things can be changed for the good, or that everything happened was always, but always for the good, I cannot be fully supportive of my dreams and plans. 

Does it make to plan anything after all? Not that I'm suddenly the prey of a dramatic turn of faith and entering a dark age stage of nihilism. As for now, I decided to take a completely new attitude to life: getting less and less involved in planning. After so much planning and worries and too much thinking about what will happen if, I decided to give up. This year, a shmitta year, I don't look after the fruits, just will go and on with my life.

Who knows?

Happy 5773!

For me and my family, 5772 was a full year, with a lot of personal changes, ups and downs, discoveries and understanding of the power of silence when no need is for worries, as long as Hashem is guiding us.

Wasn't always easy, but looking back I cannot be but amazed by the tremendous process I went through. 

And I wish to have the wisdom and force to continue for many years from now.

Shana tova and may all be written in the Book of life!

Be back soon after 5773 is here!

Post-chagim traumatic simcha

How do you expect to feel after 10 days of holidays - although not fully, at least 6 full completely free days - following other holidays and warm preparations of the mind and soul?...This month was amazing and after being at one of the highest levels of happiness in my life, landing in the raw world of realities when you should work and work and work and take care of the daily chores won't be easy. All I have is to hope for the coming Shabbos and Rosh Chodesh but I am sure that till then I will change a lot and I have an impressive amount of priorities on my to-do-list. As usual, I am trying to do my best in looking for compensations and a balance.

When I woke up early this morning I felt the deep sea of unhappiness of not having any occasion to celebrating, shul going and spending quality time with my family and my close friends. In the last two weeks, more than ever I felt the shadow of a completely different and special new beginning of the year, a long process that ended up yesterday with the beginning of a new cycle of Torah reading. In less than a month we succeeded to do many changes into our lifes, and to start anew many chapters. My soul is longing for the quiet perfect time of Shabbos, but my mind is aware that it's enough for now and all we have to do is to enter into the rhtythm of the daily actions and put into practice all our learning and insights. Otherwise, how we can evaluate the degree of change? In a way, I was feeling that enough is enough but are we ever having enough of Paradise? I'd read yesterday about how hard is to start davening after years of staying away of the siddur (an experience I know very well) but once you re-enter the path, how difficult is to stop.

Fighting the sadness of going back to reality, I already started a new writing project and set up some new professional and personal objectives. The progress I made in the last hours is good and I am looking forward to new achievements and reading. It will not be an easy period of time, but I am ready to do my schedule and to welcome Chanukkah with a completely new perspective in a new place. Of course, nobody stops me to fully enjoy the time with my family and to celebrate life, after early mornings started with Modeh Ani.

b''h

Shavua tov!

Browsing my bookshelf (again and again)

The last two weeks were extremely rich in terms of reading and although the time was extremely busy given various home and spiritual activities - equally important - and various preparations, there were an impressive amount of books I enjoyed and will fully recommend for further consideration and lecture(s).

I refreshed and add more information to my historical background through the lecture of this "Concise History of the Rabbinate". Among others, it was interesting to find more about French and Germany's official positions from the 19th century on, regarding the Jewish communities.

In preparation for Rosh Hashanah, I've found several inspiring books:

Judaism as a Religion, by Rabbi Leon Stitskin, published in 1937 in America, consisting of a series of holiday sermons delivered between 1932 and 1936. In a time of terrible tragedy for the Jewish people - a situation mentioned in several interventions - R' Leon Stitskin was explaining to the American Jews about the symbols of the holidays, the importance of resisting assimilation and the importance of good deeds.

An older book, from 1915, The Orthodox Position, by HMJ Loewe, clarifies main points of Orthodox Judaism and the justification for the belief in Orhodoxy.

I've read many stories about people imprisoned in Russia, but rarely I had the occasion to see so much beauty and forgiveness as in A Prince in Prison. The Previous Lubavither Rebbe's Account of His Incarceration in Stalinist Russia in 1927. Humanly speaking you can't stop being angry against those who accepted to be the instruments of the enemy against fellow Jews, but after reading these accounts I started to understand more about teshuva and the power of inner change.

I prepared my spiritual journey though the New Year with the help of R' Dovid D. Meisels' book The Radiance of Rosh Hashanah, where I found this quote: "How does a person know that the gates of Heaven have opened to allow his prayers to enter? When he feels his heart opening up and a fountain of faith surging up from below, it is a sign that, in the same way, the gates of Heaven above have opened up".

This year, I dedicated a fair amount of time at the book of Yonah and Rabbi Ilan Ginian's book, The Navi Journey. Sefer Yonah opened my eyes to a better and halachic understanding of this story that we traditionally read on Yom Kippur.

For all those interested in Talmudic studies and lecture, two basic books opening the gates to understanding the various interpretations and explanations: Tools for Tosafos, by Haim Perlmutter, and Understanding the Talmud. A Systematic Guide to Talmudic Structure and Methodology. It is how I realized how much I should learn and learn to improve my time management, including by avoiding to waste my time procrastinating. More learning is part of my resolution package for the New Year.

One of the books I longed for from the first moment I found out about the publication was Jerusalem, by Simon Sebag Montefiore, whose historical writings I was familiar with for a long time. For one day and a half I stayed glued reading this wonderful biography, an impressive and extermely diplomatic account of the history of a city with a terrible and overwhelming history.

History is addressed again in another difficult book: Judenrat, by Isaiah Trunk, dissecting the Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe under Nazi Occupation. A painful episode shedding a different light on the history of Jews from Poland, the Baltic countries (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) and the occupied areas of USSR (Byelorussia and Ukraine) when "for the first time in Jewish history, a Jewish organ was forced to help a foreign, criminal regime to destroy coreligionists".

Last on the latest list, a book I read together with kids, simple and offering food for thought for the little ones: Yom Kippur with Bina, Benny and Chaggai Hayonah.

That's all by now, but new books are already waiting for me. Happy reading!

A few things in my mind after the long holiday

The holiday was wanderful and the yom really tov: lots of good food - including mine - new and old friends, continous personal discoveries, good books and a couple of personal and professional resolutions (I still can't discern the difference between the two).

After so many quiet and highly spiritual days, it's very hard to return back on track - facing the flow of e-mails, for example) but I should be ready for another experience soon, as the Sukkot is also starting on a Wednesday.

Now, Tzom Gedalia started, I woke up later than expected so no time to eat early in the morning and I wish to spent my whole day writing, finishing some books and doing some professional schmoozing.

Before that, let's start this writing year with a couple of observations (tried to avoid as much as possible lashon hara of any kind).

- Definitely, it should be found a solution for blocking the use of cell phones in the shul. It should be blocked somehow, otherwise I am getting crazy.

- Nothing compares with the men's voices singing. Listening the ascending tremolo of the voices drives you far away in the sunny sky.

- After three days and a little half of disconnection with the outer world, it was very hard to accept that I am out of the paradise. From the linguistic point of view, I had some blank seconds where I was unable to switch automatically to the language used. Overall, I spoke at least five languages and listen to six. Anyway, I still feel like linguistically jet-lagged...

- We have wonderful prayers, and knowing how to pronounce the words and their meanings adds a lot of deep understanding of who we are. A very significant part of me can't wait the next yom tov - I don't have to wait too long and meanwhile I should organize my time as efficient as possible (sometimes we need to make some money, at least for the nice dresses and the good food and the present for the lovely people of our lives).

Back on the track and wishing again to my readers Shana Tova!

The New Year!

Image via Wikipedia//What we have to eat and pray

Two days ago, when thinking about the new year I got very tensed: a lot of chores to be finished, cooking, preparing menus, inviting friends and family, establishing the special schedule for children, running up and fro for the shopping, finishing the unfinishing projects and books, the yeshiva classes.

Overall, not too much time to think and evaluate as I was expecting to. In my projection, I was thinking about one hour or two when in the silence I can map my past successes and failures and future plans and wishes. Given the overloaded schedule and the highly intesive social life I was almost stucked in spending time with lots of people, but myself.

Yesterday, at the end of the cooking marathon I realized how wrong I was. I was already clear with the past and I know very well what do I want to accomplish in the future. The last year was one of the most amazing and spiritually and personally rich from my life and it's only up to me to continue the progress. Was I am missing is the sound of the shofar announcing that it is the right time for the new start.

Shana Tova!

Shabbat at the shul

For the first time in months I had a full Shabbat for myself: no guests or visits to honor, a very quiet family life and any other social obligations or worries. Add to this a wonderful weather outside and you'll have the perfect combination - for a barbecue or a trip outside the city you might think? not at all - and motivation for spending more time at the shul. For erev Shabbat and today I spent a lot of time coming and going from and to the synagogue. A great opportunity to think a lot about what do I have to do for the New Year.

There were lots of people in the shul: from new borns to respectable elders, nicely dressed girls not tall enough to touch the mezuzah, new and old observers, from different corners of the world and different social habits and siddurs. I tried as much as possible to pray but also to observe the variety of people. With a bit of attention and imagination it was easy to create stories of life, survival and family journeys. Yesterday I attended a bat mitzvah and I add to my observation dish also some remarks about the new generational trends among modern Jewish girls.

Diversity is always the spice of life and I am always happy to enjoy the differences. One of the things I love a lot during the high holidays is how people from different and sometimes antagonistic backgrounds are turning back to their roots by attending the ceremonies, in the synagogues or in private meetings, at the reform, modern, orthodox or chassidic synagogues or gatherings. In such moments, we realize how important is to be together and to find the community that fits you, and to have around your family and all those sharing your love.

Shavua tov to you all!

Rosh Hashanah 1944

A wonderful story of survival and remembrance, the perfect memory for a period of teshuva and evaluation.

One year ago, one week before

Image via Wikipedia//The blow of shofar will have a different meaning for me this year

I can clearly see myself, one week from now, in the middle of the final preparations for Rosh Hashanah: the last cooking, preparing to welcome the guests, maybe resting a bit, ending up the last bits of work before the holidays.

Looking back I see myself at the end of a wonderful cycle of changes of discovering new meanings and reconsidering old values. A year when I had around me persons who dramatically changed my life for good. I couldn't be more thankful every single second of my life!

In the same time, I see myself before a long road that could last one year or more of new achievements and spiritual evaluations. A year when I want to learn to give back what I was given, when I see my spiritual growth as a way to double my contribution to the world.

I will maintain this blog as the trace of my daily steps.

Traditions of the selichot

The sense and history

Basic questions and answers

The Chabad perspective and the prayers

Selichot for iPhone

Thoughts before Elul

Image via Wikipedia//Time to think about the past and the future

Tonight we are entering the last month of the Jewish year, Elul, a month of evaluation, consideration, teshuva but also joy.

Life is always with ups and downs, tears and smiles. Happiness and unhappiness aren't permanent status and we are lucky enough to be able to alternate and becoming wise enough to find the proper solutions for sometimes difficult problems.

Recently, I was faced with a complicate situation: I found out that somebody very close to my heart did something wrong and I went extremely angry - without being disappointed. Crying and making a scene are not a solution but on the spot I didn't see any other easy possibilities for overcoming this difficult situation without a direct effect on me. Fortunately enough, I was alone without the possibility to contact the person for the next hours. I decided to make a big mug of coffee, watch a movie (a bit strange, but dark enough to annihilate my dark thoughts), think about the lunch, go to the library to pick up new books. I got some fresh air, saw different persons and the tension was decreasing.

This change of ambiance helped me to take a decision: I should tell the person that I know about the whole incident because I need to prevent a repetition. I have to create a very relaxed and neutral narrative, outlining the hilarious aspects - not lecturing but making a terrible fun of the attitude, actors and other aspects. I am talking about a person with a simple sense of humour for whom my opinion matters a lot and who will never do something to hurt me. With a smiling face and a sweet voice, we had a wonderful and relaxed dialogue about human mistakes without openly recognizing the mistakes or accusing each other - one persons knows too much, the other is too naive. The whole setting worked admirably, although at the end of the experiment I was feeling extremely exhausted psychically because of the pressure of finding the best diplomatic solution without creating tensions or conflict.

And this could be a good beginning for thinking about life, relationships and human appreciation.

Chodesh tov!