"Love Letter" to the girl I am dating.

To the girl with whom I am dating,

I know it is early in our relationship, but I wanted to write you a letter expressing an observation I have made about you and me, and I wonder how we can resolve this to come to a closer understanding of each other.

On the surface it seems like you like me. You look at me with eyes of curiosity wondering, "who is that man sitting across from me?" You ask surface-level questions hoping that my answers will give your analytical mind a chance to piece together an understanding of whether I would be a good husband to you.

In our conversations, you stand your ground defending your answers and defending truth as you understand it to be. You correct misinformation immediately, and you prefer accuracy and clarity within our conversations. When you don't understand something you ask for clarification.

Our thought patterns are different. Your thoughts are very logical, mine connect like a web. You don't quite grasp how I think or the connections between our conversation topics, but you go along with it hoping that eventually some rhyme or reason will come of it.

I even suspect the way we live our lives on a daily basis differ. I look for the meaning in every action, and I try to understand why things happen the way they do from both a spiritual, logical, and psychological outlook. I don't analyze my world, I observe it and I calculate. I think from your comments that you simply live in the world and don't look into any of these factors -- in fact, I think that you find that it is a waste of time and energy to look at the world the way I see it.

Going a little bit deeper, I like to see what is behind the surface. That is where you hide and so you get defensive when I try to peer past the persona that you give to me. For me, everything is a front for something else, and I suspect you don't like people analyzing the analyzer which is you. Perhaps it makes you feel a bit out of control, and you don't like that.

I am a bit confused though. You said yourself you are a good person, yet your privacy interests suggest to me that there is something about you that you do not want me to find out, and because I see all first layers as transparent, I have perceived by your responses to my probings that I am a threat to you. You metaphorically hold up your hand and say "stop" when I peer past the surface, and I wonder why. I mean you no harm; I just want to get to know you.

If you are defending a simple privacy interest, I would understand. But I feel that I am faced with anger when I probe a bit deeper into you. There is some hurt beneath the surface and I want to find out what it is and if it will form an obstacle between us moving forward.

Who hurt you? What was he to you? What happened when you opened up to him? Was he a teacher? Was he a friend? What decision made you seal your heart shut, and can you open up again? Can you love? Can you love me without limit? When the time comes and the trust is formed, the amount of love that I have to share is boundless. Will I need to break through old wounds to find the real you? How much effort will I need to expend to accomplish this goal, and will you ever allow me to access this part of you? A belief of mine is that if I am to form a loving relationship with you, I want to know that I will have all of you. Secrets don't go well with me, and I believe they form boundaries and destroy intimacy.

Moving deeper, what bothers me is that there are years that are missing from your stories about your life. You sum up years of your life into one sentence indicating that an experience such as college was "ordinary". You sum up becoming religious as one evening's experience. You don't talk at all about your family and all these concern me. In other words, what you do not want me to know about you sticks out in my eyes like a sore thumb and screams, "ask about it." But then it seems to me that you want your past left alone. This confuses me. All I want to know is whether your past is going to interfere with our potential future.

I suppose with all of our differences, I ask myself, "can we still build a home together?" Can we grow close enough to develop the intimacy to one day become husband and wife in spite of our differences? These are the questions that are on my mind.

Love,
Zoe

I Dreamed of a Love Story

I just had such a realistic dream that I feel that I watched a movie about somebody's life. I'm going to write down in the short few moments that I have the basic plot of the dream and when I have time, I might fill it in to make it a real story.

There was an older brother and two younger brothers. The older brother was corrupt, was into politics, and drank whisky. One younger brother was in boarding school, had longer hair, and was often made fun of by his peers, and the other was a studious child who lived with his mother. The father was a corrupt politician and had his hands in many illegal activities.

After drinking some of the older brother's whisky and loving it, I went hi-speed sledding with the girlfriend of the older brother. She was younger than him, closer to my age. We went up the mountain full speed, flew over hills, and sped up a huge mountain and went over the peak which felt like a cliff. It was exhilarating.

This took place in England. The problem is that we got lost in our adventurous ride, and then decided to walk our way back to America. On our walk, I befriended the younger brother who we took from his boarding school. On his way out, he got a closely shaved haircut and looked like a different person.

On our adventures, we ended up in Taiwan. We were all very hungry. When we went to get some food, it occurred to the younger brother that we were in Taiwan, and being politically connected to his family, he had the same biases as the other members of his family did. Disregarding the need for subtlety, he started making fun of the Taiwanese people, insulting them without reason. He told a story of how disgusting the place was that even a plane made of steel that once landed there from the US rusted from the pollution as it landed.

As we sought an escape from the country, we realized that the stretchy material of the bra could be used a to make a bungy cord. We went to a seamstress who provided us with enough material to make the bungy cord.

Immediately, the US military showed up with their guns blazing. People everywhere were getting shot at and killed. You could see the bullets flying everywhere. A group of rebel Taiwanese soldiers were hidden in the back of a truck filled with weapons. When the US soldiers opened up the doors, the rebels opened up with heavy fire and pushed back the Americans. We were caught by the Taiwanese as prisoners of war.

We were judged to be executed not by the gun, but by the sword. We were covered in a cross made from barb wire which pushed us against the ground. From the corner of our eye, we saw an execution. A man was cut into pieces in one movement by the crafty swordsman. The barb wire hurt my neck. We were informed that this was going to hurt, but that we would die shortly afterwards.

Somehow before it was our time, the Americans negotiated to have us released and we were put on a boat to return to the US. By this time, the other brother had grown up and had gone into politics. He was angry that I had stolen his brother's girlfriend. He was at the US border in a Navy boat with sirens, and when we approached, he and his navy turned us away. When we identified who we were, he instructed that they opened fire. I jumped into the water and according to the records, I died. The girl and the brother were saved and were given amnesty.

The younger brother -- the one I befriended -- grew up to be an honest statesman. He helped to fight his brothers in the corrupt governmental activities that they were involved in. After retiring from politics, he decided to go into religion and became a bishop. He often made television remarks on politics and the state of affairs according to his opinions, and people listened to what he had to say. He always walked around with his war metals and his large fur coat.

The girlfriend grew up to be a teacher of children in military school. She had always loved me and never remarried. One day after the bishop was assassinated, no doubt by one of his corrupt brothers, the girlfriend gave a commemorative speech. There were three graves -- the brother turned bishop, her own grave, and mine. As she stood by her grave, I stepped forward, now grown up myself, and I stood by mine.

Upon seeing me, she immediately recognized me for who I was. She cried in joy because she thought I had died that day by the US border on the boats. I was grown up too now. It turns out that I snuck on the Navy boat that night that they opened fire on us and entered back into the US through their vessel. I lived close to the other brother who knew of my escape and the brother kept me safe for many years under a different identity. It was only the girl who did not know of my escape because she did not keep in touch with us after that night because of the shock she experienced upon being fired upon and seeing me jump into the water and apparently being killed.

I woke up crying wondering if this really happened to someone at some point and I just experienced their story.

The real me hidden behind the surface?

Yesterday I phrased what happened on the shidduch date in a very negative way. I was afraid of being stepped on and rejected again, because in my past, whenever I would show my true self, I would be rejected.

Hindsight, I am very impressed at how well I hide myself, yet at the same time, I forgot that the part of me that came out on the last shidduch date and connected with the woman (in a really intimate way) was there. Does that mean that I have forgotten who I was?

This happening of the character shift both worries and excites me. I honestly didn't know that part of me still existed, and yet there it was lurking below the surface of the confident personality that I have moulded and formed over the years.

It's a breakthrough [literally :)] that this part of me still exists. This part of me is a warm, caring, vulnerable, and loving personality -- but what I like most about it is that it is real. It lives in the present, and it experiences life realtime rather than the disconnected way I see reality now as I am.

The interesting thing is that when it came out I felt charged with emotions. Some of the feelings I felt were hurt and pain, and other feelings that I felt were vulnerability. I believe this character is a tzaddik compared to me and is filled with all the love and compassion that I've been lacking over the years.

But then again, I ask myself, did this character spontaneously come out on its own like an alien busting through the chest of its host?? Or did the woman I am dating (and am starting to grow fond of) see this part of me and did she bring this loving side of me out from the exile it has experiences over the years of its suppression?

Either way, have I shed a layer of protection that has kept the real me hidden for years now? This is a fascinating question.

Shidduch Date with Alter-Ego

Today was either a mediocre day or an amazing, action-packed, exciting day depending how I look at it.

The usual events -- I'm falling behind in Patent Practice class because I'm avoiding doing the homeworks because they are so complex and everything is piling up on me. It's Thursday already tomorrow and I feel that I won't have time to do both the homework for Creditor's Rights (Bankruptcy) and Patent Practice, and since I let one course's homework assignment slide last week, I think I'll maybe let the other course's homework assignment slide tomorrow and I'll catch up on Patent Practice. I just have to bite the bullet and just get to work. No distractions.

I visited my mother today. We spoke about the Shidduch date I recently had where I still haven't found out if the woman wants to continue dating or not. Our last date was magnificent, or so I thought it was until -- and I really have no other way to explain this --
the real me came out.

If I were schitzophrenic that would have been a perfect explanation for what happened because my demeaner changed, I got quiet, I lost that smooth, eloquent conversational ability that I had most of the date, and my heart opened up -- for the first time in many years -- and it reached out and connected with her. I felt vulnerable, emotional, and I was hoping she didn't notice the change.

She did notice that I was having a very difficult time expressing my thoughts and that I wasn't quite making sense. This change happened all in the course of seconds.

The only way I could explain it was that it felt like an alter-ego that was hiding beneath my skin decided for the first time in many years that it was safe to come out and say hello to the other person. I haven't felt so open with someone since before I became religious.

Nevertheless, I still don't understand what happened. I'm really embarassed about this. And the timing was so terrible that as soon as this happened, we reached our destination and I dropped her off... The thought that went through my mind was, "she must think that either I'm really brilliant, or I'm crazy." I wish the date didn't end the way it did.

Father wasting his life away.

Every evening for the past four to five weeks from around 6pm until into the night, my father has been playing poker in front of the computer screen.

I've been commenting lately to him that this is a waste of time and that nothing productive can come from the six or seven hours of poker each night. He says, "What do you want from me? I want to enjoy life." I tell him that poker isn't even an activity which requires skill or thought.

I told him to get a productive hobby. I asked him, "why don't you learn some new skill or learn to do something that you enjoy?" He said, "I'm almost 60 years old now. There is nothing that I can learn."

I asked him, "Your father lived until he was 92. Are you going to spend the next twenty to thirty years wasting your life? Why don't you do something with your life?" He answered, "I don't plan on living that long."

When I questioned him on it, he simply said that he didn't feel that he was going to live into his seventies, eighties or nineties.

There is nothing wrong with his physical health. Yet he has no motivation to do anything of value. I'm not asking him to open up a Gemara and start learning Torah. I just feel that the only time he picks himself up to do anything is when he is sued by someone. Otherwise, he just sits there in the same spot for hours at a time doing absolutely nothing. Before it was poker, it was sitting in front of the television while laying in bed from early evening until late into the night.

What scares me so much about this is the saying, "like father, like son." I am so terrified of becoming like my father because I feel like he is a waste of skin. Aside from the fact that many years ago he had sex with my mother (now his ex-wife) resulting in having me and he built himself a home, he has done little with his life that an objective person would say has created lasting value. To his credit he also had a few failed businesses, but the important thing is that there was once a time when he tried.

I see him now as if he is an animal. This bothers me because I want to love him and I want to admire him and look up to him. I want to be proud of him as a father and I want to see him as a role model. I then think to myself, "I should love him for who he is," but then I think to myself, "What is someone who does not have goals in life and who does not have any character aspirations or hopes of improvement?"

"A Frum Guy's Yetzer Hara" Site

I was sure that I had seen it all until I stumbled upon a blog called "A Frum Guy's Yetzer Hara." I read many of his articles and all I can say is that I wish he were still writing. His blog is informative, "raw," and real. I've enjoyed his content.

Chassidic Clothing and Kabbalah

A few people have e-mailed me about Chassidic Clothing, wondering what it is exactly, where to find it, and why does Kabbalah say that we should wear either black or white. The first part of this post will be boring, but scroll down to the bottom for my explanation about Kabbalah and what the benefits are of wearing black or white.

Firstly, Chassidic Clothing (I have it in caps because it is a title) is nothing other than dressing modestly. People think that the required dress needs to be a karpota or a shtreimel or a black hat, but the real answer is that chassidic dress is simply modest dress. If you are a Jew, you should dress like one.

I too have resistance to this, but if this is the way it is, then I am in no position to change it. The rabbis have always proclimated that Jews should dress in either ALL WHITE, ALL BLACK, or SOME COMBINATION THEREOF. They were much smarter than I am or ever will be, and they were much more learned that I am in Gemara (Talmud), Chassidus, or Nigleh (Torah). Once I am at their level (try in a few lifetimes if I am lucky), then I'll start debating whether they were right or wrong. For now, a Jew should dress in Black or White. Keep in mind that I am wearing blue jogging pants right now with a white stripe and a black tee-shirt that says "ARMY."

Okay, the dress of a Jew if you want to get more specific (and I'll keep this short). A Yarmulke or a Kippah (Hebrew for "a head covering") is required. So are tzitzis (fringes). I don't want to debate you on this one. I know people believe otherwise regarding the head covering. If you have a problem with wearing a yalmukah, wear a hat or a baseball cap. The tzitzis are essential. It's a big mitzvah (commandment by G-d). That's the basics. If you want to get fancy, start wearing a black hat, and once you're married, buy a Karpota (a.k.a. a Siltuk if I remember the word properly) and a Gartel (a belt that you tie in a certain way for davening). These are the basics.

Now for the interesting part: I credit Steg for influencing me to write this part because in one of my former articles he asked, "So what exactly is then the Kabbalistic reason for wearing black and white?"

Here's my answer:
I would probably say that there is a frequency that is given off by each color, and the black is the absence of any light being reflected off of the cloth and the full absorption of all of the light that hits the garment, and the white is the rejection and reflection of all of the colors off of the cloth. These light frequencies which are reflected or absorbed by the clothing we wear have some connection to the frequencies of sound (through which things are created or destroyed in our world by saying certain letters or permutations of the Hebrew letters or sounds in general). This is evidenced by the effects words -- which are combinations of sounds -- have on our psyche and our lives.

The frequencies given off by the the light based on which colors you choose to wear also have some kind of vibrational frequency which when resonated a certain way has some kind of effect on the energy that is attracted to the person or given off by the person wearing the white or black colors. Further, various colors give off various energy signatures, so probably the kabbalistic reasons for wearing all white or all black is that the frequency given off is conducive to bringing down G-dly energies. When you temper those energies with color, you change the frequency and you somehow taint it forming another energy signature. The only pure energy signatures that can tap into G-dly light are white or black. Any other energy signature will tap into another frequency or lower energy, and with Judaism, especially with Chassidic thought and within Chassidm, we are not satisfied with just tapping into any energy, we want to have access to the highest level possible which is closest to G-d. Therefore, we wear only black or white. That's my guess based on my limited knowledge of science. If you think about it, it actually makes sense. If you didn't follow the logic, let me know and if I have time, I'll write this out in a more detailed article. However, I think this explanation should suffice.

10,000 Visitors!!!

By the way, did you realize that the blog has had more than 10,000 visitors?!? Thank you all for being with me through the rough times and the good times. There have been many ups and downs, and I appreciate all the help you have given me over the past year.

Conspiracy Theory Junk; Feeling Like a Caged Animal

My mom and I had a conversation last night about self-esteem, and whether I am lacking any or not. I suppose I'm having a difficulty seeing the merit or the meaning in anything that I do. I am certainly not sad or anything, however, I'm feeling a bit of meaningless, as if we're all rats running in a maze which ultimately leads nowhere.

I used to want to change the system -- to make the world a place where people were free thinkers unbound by the chains of what ties them into being forced to go to work and get a job and do the same boring tasks every day. But all I found were that the free thinkers were usually skewed-minded people who thought that they were smarter than everyone else. I had my heart broken once when after spending years learning the "secret" laws of the United States, that some retard came over to me one day and started talking to me about the very topics that I was dedicating my life to learn. Please don't get upset at me for calling him a retard -- I know this man, and I try to avoid his long-winded conversations all the time. What I learned from him, however, was how easy it was to form a conspiracy theory and to construct a reality around it that was so real that it seemed to take on a life of its own.

The heartbreak came after learning the law in law school and realizing how not-based on sound legal philosophies my former conspiracy theories were. Then, when hearing my former theories parroted back to me by him, I lost faith in the arguments because I realized then how silly they sounded.

But I suppose my point is that I'm feeling lately a bit like a caged animal. I live in my father's house "under his roof," so to speak, and I lack autonomy because I am glued to both my law school's expectations and my religion's expectations, both which take up my whole life and my free time. Time that is not devoted to them is taken up sleeping, resting, healing, and recuperating from the stress that builds from failing their expectations.

When I used to say that I wanted to find truth, I think I misspoke. I was actually looking for my own truth, or my own power; my own creativity which is still lacking. I laugh that I feel that I got what I wished for -- I was looking for ultimate Truth, and I found G-d. I chuckle to myself that while I am very happy that I stumbled upon G-d in my search for meaning, what I was actually looking for was my own calling. I'm still lacking this.

I need to get out from my dad's house.

I had a conversation with my Rabbi about davening (praying) and putting on Tefillin. He said the mitzvah (commandment) for men to put on Tefillin is such an important one that I should strongly consider putting them on even on days that I don't get to daven in the morning -- he said this with the express disclaimer that he is not condoning not davening, but if I am not going to daven, at least I should still do the mitzvah of putting on Tefillin.

On another note, I'm getting frustrated by the living conditions in my house with my dad. He is just completely disorganized, and I feel like I'm getting infected by his disorganization because my own room is starting to look like an uncleanable mess. I just feel like I am so busy that it should be someone else's responsibility to clean up after my dad (perhaps my dad should have that responsibility) and if I don't do it, he goes nuts overboard messing everything up with his junk. I would say he is like the kid whose father never told him to hang up his coat when he came home from school. He has no sense of organization and it drives me absolutely nuts!

I'm actually looking for an apartment to get out of this hellhole of an apartment without a sink or a kitchen, and I'm looking for something closer to a shul and school. I would pay $600 per month for an apartment, but beyond that, I am having a difficult time justifying that kind of rent when there is no income coming in. By the way, $600 is the cheapest rent I can find.

I was just looking for a picture on google to put on the top of this post, and I searched for the word "jail" because that is how I feel about being in this house with my dad. I just wanted to comment that I am envious of the picture I chose, because it is so clean there. I wish my room were that organized.

My Father and My Car

I want to express my exasperation with something that has been going on for the past few days between my father and my car.

Last motzi shabbos, Saturday night, I went on a shidduch date. While I was waiting to pick up the girl, I noticed that my brake light went on and that my headlights turned off. This was weird.

I told my dad about it, and he offered to fix the car. Being that he was a mechanic for many years and that he owned a Service Station at one time, I accepted his offer.

Three nights ago, he accidentally set my wires beneath the steering wheel on fire when he decided to bypass the fuses. Noticing that the wires were melted, he said, "Houston, we have a problem." I told him that we should bring the car to a dealer. He insisted on fixing it himself. Then he broke the cigarette lighter.

The next day while driving to meet up with someone from law school, I noticed that only one headlight worked. "He must have blown out the bulb to the other headlight when he set fire to my car," I thought. I went to the dealer, picked up a bulb, and changed the light. No luck. The left headlight itself was now somehow broken.

Last night, I stood out in the rain watching him take off my steering wheel and airbag to change the piece that is used to signal left or to signal right or to pull to switch to hi-beams. He was convinced that switch was the problem. When he put the steering wheel back on, the airbag light went on indicating that it was not working.

This morning when I was driving my car, a sound started playing that would normally play when I left the keys in the ignition. I drove to school without lights, without windshield wipers, without power in my cigarette lighter (that I use to power and play my iPod), and without a fan for the heater. Mind you, it was raining outside.

Tonight, he's been "fixing" the car for over three hours. He installed a new light switch. He called me down to start the car. When I started the car, only one headlight worked, but the light behind the dashboard stopped working. Then after running the car for a minute or so, I shut it off and I tried to restart it. It wouldn't start.

I would like to comment that just a few days ago, I had a car that was running perfectly with one problem that could have been easily fixed by the dealer. Now, the more my dad fixes the car, the more things are breaking. I do believe that he will eventually fix the original problem of the headlights turning off while driving, but I am sure that many more things will be broken. I fear that my beloved car that I bought new will soon be going to the junkyard because of my dad's "expertise." I wish I never let him touch it.

My Grades are in!

Okay, I'm excited. I got back most of my grades for this past semester, and I kicked butt! Here are my grades below.

Course Name-------------------Grade
PATENT LAW-------------------------N/A
CONSTITUTIONAL LAW I---------B
SECURED TRANSACTIONS--------A
CIVIL PRACTICE----------------------P

The patent law grade has not yet come in, but I am sure I did wonderfully on that; after all, that is the field I am going into.

The P means "pass" which does not affect my GPA. I was lucky because I elected to take the class "pass/no credit" which means that if I got below a C, I would get no credit for the course and I wouldn't graduate. However, if I got a C or higher, I would get the credit for the class, but my GPA wouldn't be affected.

Believe it or not, I ended up with a C, which my professor calls, "a Gentleman's C" which is why I am happy to say that I passed the class and got credit for it. That was one tough class!!!

Yippee!

Technorati Keywords: Grades, Secured Transactions, Patent Law, Attorney Practice, Constitutional Law.

I hate the word "Chossidish."

I don't know what to make of anything. It's almost 7:30pm, and I am done for the night. I spent my afternoon printing customized coverletters to law firms on good paper. I spoke to my mom who is still having what I am starting to refer to as a family fixation. Her and her new husband have been pressuring me as to the importance of having a family, as if it is some contract that I must sign at the bottom line with conditions and terms. Rather, my opinion is that if they want to be a family, they should start acting like a family instead of putting me through all this red tape.

My rabbi cannot understand why I don't like to daven, and I could tell that it bothers him to no end that there are times (like recently) for days at a time that I don't daven or put on Tefillin, either because I don't have time in the morning, or because my heart is just not into it. Personally, I am stoked that I've been keeping up with the daily Chumash, the daily Tanya, and the daily Rambam. This is a big accomplishment for me because there was a long gap of time when I didn't regularly do it. So this for me is a big step back in the right direction.

Then there is the looming question of the woman. What woman? True, there is no woman yet, but I'm sure she must be on her way or else none of this is worth it. The thing that bothers me is that in my heart, I don't feel that a religious woman will like me. I feel that each time I go out with a religious girl, she says no to the second shidduch. I don't even make it to a second try. "He's just not right for me," they say.

I think that having a normal religious girl would be a wonderful thing, and if she's Lubavich, even better! I don't understand why there is all this obsession over a certain kind of self-sacrificing girl who devotes her life to Torah and Mitzvot. Does a woman like that really exist? And if so, is she really supposed to be with -- of all people, me?? I think I would be happy with a regular girl who keeps shabbos, keeps strictly kosher, who will cover her hair and who wears dresses and skirts, and who will keep the laws of family purity. Beyond that, what else is there that is so important? Everything else to me seems silly.

There are basic things that a Jew is supposed to do, and I want us to do them and to life our lives. This isn't such a complex thing. It's the ultra-religious people that complicate everything with minhagim, rebbeim, with the word "chossidish" (a.k.a. chassidish) and with everything else. Oh do I hate the word "chossidish." It is probably one of my least favorite words in the world. I hate the word not because of the high level of observance in which it stands for, but I hate the word for the standard that it peer-pressures on everyone around the one who is practicing being that way.

Anyway, my laptop is running out of batteries, and my eyes are starting to get droopy. G-d give me the strength to get a job, to get my own apartment, and to score a good wife who I will make feel happy and loved, cared for and cherished.

PS - I apologize for the "Hebrew" image at the top of this post.

2005 Jewish and Israeli Blog Awards

The 2005 Jewish and Israeli Blog Awards, hosted by The Jerusalem Post and Israellycool, are now underway, and I'm a nominee. Please vote for me. :)

Father Busted For Having An Illegal Apartment

I need to make a list of things that I am to talk about with my psychologist, and in my current state of anger at my father, I feel this is the perfect time.

What happened. In general, my father does not think before he acts, and then he gets his ass kicked by the law. He gets into trouble thinking he is smarter and above the law. This time, he illegally rented his main floor out to tenants -- a smart move, but I told him to check with the local law before he does so to make sure he is allowed to do it. "Don't worry," he told me, "if they catch me, I'll just remove my kitchen stove because that is all that is required -- you can't have more than one kitchen in a one-family house." When I asked him if he was sure about it, he said, "Of course I'm sure."

Well, today he got a summons for having an illegal apartment among other municipal violations, which when I checked it out are misdemeanors and can cause the mortgage to be accelerated by the bank, the water to be shut off by the municipality causing the house to be condemned and held unfit for living. In other words, my dad could lose the house.

When I approached him about the summons, he shrugged and asked me to research the law and to find out what his options were. I immediately got upset and I asked him, "Didn't you check this out before you rented it out?? Didn't you check it out before you decided to buy the house from your brother who you knew would report you to the authorities for having an illegal apartment??" I knew his brother would report him all along, and I told him to be prepared for it.

My dad shrugged and told me, "I took a risk."

HE TOOK A RISK?!? HE WAS SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN PREPARED FOR THIS HAPPENING. I KNEW IT WAS IMMINENT AND SO DID HE. WHY DIDN'T HE LISTEN TO ME WHEN I TOLD HIM TO GET LEGAL ADVICE ABOUT THE DOWNSTAIRS APARTMENT BEFORE RUSHING TO BUY HIS BROTHER OUT IN THEIR LAWSUIT??

What bothers me is that I know that my father is SO DISORGANIZED with his finances that he could never afford this house on his own paycheck. Now he has a legal battle on his hands, not to mention the tenant can sue him for return of all of the rent, not to mention that we might be forced to move out, not to mention that the tenant will likely take advantage of the situation and refuse to move out.

My solution to this mess is for my father and me to vacate the premises and rent an apartment somewhere else, that way only one family is legally living in the house, and my dad will continue receiving rent for the apartment so that he can cover his mortgage payments. Then when the year is up, he should rent out the whole house as a HOUSE rather than as an illegal main-floor apartment. During the interim, I'll go and get an apartment of my own that I've wanted to get for some time now, and my dad will go and get an apartment of his own. We'll each pay our own way, and the problem will be solved. That is if the house won't be shut down and condemned and the water shut off and the mortgage accelerated. In that case, my dad will be forced to sell the house at a loss.

Interesting site on Health and Fitness

By the way, I found an interesting blog on Health and Fitness. The articles are of high quality, are concise, and are packed with insightful information. I recommend it.

The name of the site is "New Health and Fitness - For those in shape and those not quite there yet", and the link can be found here.

By the way, I found an interesting recipe which emulates (in its effect) low dosages of Ritalin. This cocktail would be for those who have ADD / ADHD but are not yet on medication. You take some coffee and ice and you put it in a blender. Then add some kind of protein powder (I used "GeniSoy", which gives a whopping 25g of protein per serving, plus it's kosher), and some flax or borage oil (if you find them useful -- I always have some in my house -- it's a bit difficult to find kosher ones out there, but they're out there.)

I also added my Green Kamut Wheatgrass Powder which I buy from fubaohealth.com because ordering from the manufacturer organicbynature.com will cost you more money. Green Kamut is one of the best, most pH beneficial things you can do for your body if you are trying to lose weight. It, combined with drinking liters of water each day plus sufficient exercise can rip the excess pounds from the body. All of this is based on Dr. Robert O. Young's research in his book "The pH Miracle". I've followed his nutritional instructions before and I've lost significant amounts of weight from it. I find his information to be credible.

By the way, while the Green Kamut Wheatgrass Powder alone has a neutral and even a pleasant taste, I realized after drinking it with the coffee mixture that the Ritalin cocktail tasted TERRIBLE! I suppose it was the Green Kamut mixed with the coffee that gave the nasty taste. I would drink it again if it actually has the health benefits that it is claimed to have.

Comment on Shidduchim

I know that many of you have recommended that I not date during these unsteady times until I have my life in order, but I feel that the time will never be perfect to marry, and because compatible shidduchim are so rare in my experience, if a good girl comes, I will take her as a wife. I am almost thirty years old and this age of mine looms in my head. I do not wish to be an old father. I also do not wish to spend my life alone until I "get it together". I feel that part of "getting it together" is finding someone whom you can relate to and who you can partner up with so that you both can grow in a positive direction. Without a wife, I am alone.

"You'll Relax When You're Dead."

Journal Entry: I am spending my mornings studying for the bar exam, and I am spending my afternoons reviewing my notes. My evenings are pretty much non-existent because I am so exhausted by the time my studying is over that I cannot remember doing anything productive during the evenings in some time.

We are entering the third week of bar review. This is exciting for me because I didn't think I would be able to handle such a task, and somehow I am handling it quite well. It seems that my life has been put on hold during this experience, and my friends don't understand why I am not calling them back or why I have no time to hang out while all my other law school friends are vacationing between the semesters.

Ringing through my head is the saying that an upperclasswoman said to me my first year of law school, "you'll rest when you're dead." I keep reading all these books which talk about going with the flow of life and relaxing, yet my flow is filled with currents and rocks and deep cliffs. It seems that I will never get a chance to relax, not even once I am an attorney. I don't know how I feel about this.

Another issue is my privacy and my independence, or the lack of both. I feel that I have neither, and both are very high up there on my value higherarchy. I think to myself, "when I get a job, I'll get my own place and everything will be okay," but it is more likely that someone will recommend a shidduch to me before then who might turn into a wife. Having a wife and a family is also high up there in my value system. What's the purpose of living if you cannot share your happiness with anyone?

I just hope I make all the right decisions in life with the help of Hashem, and I hope that I can continue to serve him in a better way than I am doing now. My attitude towards religion has been off lately.

Upset that Father is home from his trip...

I got angry at my dad last night. He asked me if I wanted to have dinner with him, and I said, "yes," and then the minute I turned around, he called his best friend from downstairs to join us. Pissed off, I told him that he could have checked with me to see whether it would be okay with me. I live here too.

That's the thing. I don't want to live with him anymore. Other than his inconsiderate behavior, I find him to be unmotivating and unsettling. There is nothing that he does that has a positive effect on me. All he does is sleep, fart, walk around naked, watch television, and waste time. I find that almost zero percent of his time is dedicated to goal-oriented activities. For me, a person who does not work on their goals is a loser and is not worth the breath they breathe. I am so sad to have been given such a loser to be my father. I do not look up to him at all. I never have; not since I was a child. I do understand the need to relax if one IS working -- I often relax after a hard day's work, or after I've expended a significant amount of energy on a project or a goal.

Tonight after Havdala, I yelled to him "you're so unmotivating" when he hung up the phone after saying to his friend that he doesn't feel like going out tonight for New Year's Eve. What gets me upset is that I CERTAINLY DO NOT WANT TO SPEND TONIGHT WITH HIM. I want to be alone for the sole reason that I want to be independent and not watched or monitored or controlled by anyone. I have a lot of work to do and when I am seething with anger, I am unable to focus.

I am so angry right now with my new "friend" for the evening that I want to go out -- anywhere -- as long as it is away from him. I hate being in the same house as him because I get drained of my energy and I feel that from my anger, my life force drips away when he's home. I want nothing to do with him, and he does not know how to give me space and to leave me alone. I enjoy nothing more than an empty house. These past few weeks while he was away were the best weeks I've had in months. I am so upset that he is home from his trip.

Dependent on Father Dependent on Me.

Tonight there was an incident between me and my father. Well, there would have been had I said something. He came home from a trip yesterday, and I am 8 days into my intensive bar review classes.

We live together in his house, and whenever I want to invite a friend over or whenever I want to do something, I extend the courtesy of checking with him to see if he is alright with it. He doesn't extend the same courtesy.

Tonight he decided to invite his friend over for dinner. This would normally be okay, but I really needed to study. I wish he had checked with me because if he did, I would have asked him not to have guests over today while I am studying.

They were so loud talking in Hebrew that I couldn't study at all. I took a two hour nap because I got overwhelmed with anger, and when I woke up they were still going at it chatting away. I wish he would have had the courtesy to ask me if I needed quiet.

I wish I lived alone away from my father. I wish I lived in my own apartment, and I wish I had the job to sustain myself. Being in law school has taken such a toll on my humanity because it has forced me to be dependent on him, however each time I have tried to move out on my own, he has started getting VERY sad wondering why I am leaving him. I often wonder who is dependent on whom.

I wish I can get up and leave but because of my financial situation and my inability to change it, I am held prisoner in my father's home until I pass the bar and get a job. Graduating law school and passing the bar is not only my way to success and happiness, it is also my get out of jail card, unless I can find a way to leave sooner. I often think that my sanity depends on it.

New Matisyahu Video; My feelings about it.

There is a new Matisyahu video which I found to be inspiring. The video can be found here. It features Matisyahu as a moving character billboard on the wall. I enjoyed the words posted in the background because I often find Reggae songs hard to follow, but here, the words were beautiful.

I felt that with the black hat and the white shirt, I was inspired to return to dressing Chassidic because while I think Matisyahu captured the essence of what it means to be Lubavich today, his message wasn't one about limitations and conformity, but unity between souls and helping another person in need.

I haven't worn my white shirt and black hat combination in some time because I've been embarrassed the way I look wearing it. People see me as channeling someone I am not, and it felt weird being asked all these questions about Torah and Judaism when I as of late have been pretty secular myself.

I guess the message here is that it is never too late to return to being outwardly Chassidic and it is probably wrong of me to hide it by dressing secularly. The affect the garb has on people is stunning, and I shouldn't take away from others that religious inspiration which the clothing inspires in others because of my own insecurities of not being myself.

Rub-a-dub-dub, Studying in the Tub

I'm really happy with the way studying went today. Studying in the tub surprisingly kept my focus and my attention on the materials I needed to study. The trick was to have a drink handy just in case I got dehydrated. I brought a bottle of Crystal Lite and a cup of coffee. (I know, coffee is dehydrating, but the energy kick is worth the extra toll on the body.)

I feel prepared for my Secured Transactions exam tomorrow. I will need help from G-d to do well on my Patent Law exam the following morning. This will be one of those events where I look back and wonder, "how in the world did I accomplish that?!?"

I should probably at this point turn to G-d and say, "I know I've neglected You the Almighty Creator, but now I'm turning back to you and asking you for help. Please G-d help me do well on my Patent Law exam. ...and while I have Your attention, can you also give me that extra push of support with my Secured Transactions final too?" I should probably also pray, but I likely won't. I haven't been into it in a few days. I will start up again as soon as my finals are over. Bad boy.

Work PLUS Play

The choices were doughnuts or working out at the gym. Are you curious which one I chose? Neither. I didn't want to get fat from the doughnuts, and I didn't have the energy or the hours to spend at the gym.

So I decided that if I took a past exam and my notes into the bathtub with me and I answered the questions using my outline, that way, I'll be able to both study in a fun environment, and get some work done too. I used to do this also when I would do phone sales from home -- I'd hop in the bathtub or sauna and make my calls from a list and a headset phone. It was a wonderful way to combine work with relaxation.

In fact, I'm about to go back in to continue... See you later!

I must persevere.

I've lost it. The desire to be the best I can be, the desire to master my exams. I feel like I cannot go on, and I feel like I cannot master these exams. My exams have gotten the better of me and I feel powerless to intervene. From the work I have already done, I know a significant amount; but I lack the focus and the mind power to move forward with the studying. My brain is a fog. I am done for.

As destructive as this is to the precious hours I have left before my exams, I need to take a break and to get out of the house for a drive. I have been here too long, and I feel like I am no longer productive. I feel like I have over-studied, and yet I have not yet even covered half the amount of material that I need to cover by tomorrow.

I don't know whether to go the healthy route and to go to the gym, or to go the unhealthy route and to get a doughnut. Right now the doughnut seems more attractive to me. I will get into my gym clothes and then I will put my shoes on and get in the car. Where it drives me, we will know the answer.

I am not a hero. I am an ordinary guy trying to get by so that I can get a descent job when I graduate law school. I want to find a wife; I want to have enough of an income to be affluent. I want to be self directed, and I want to pay my own bills out of my own money and not federal government school loan money. I want friends, and a culture that will give me activities to participate in, people to see, and meaningful events to fill my time.

These exams and the upcoming bar exam classes which will lead to taking and passing the bar exam, coupled with the patent bar exam seem like unclearable hurdles which separate me between my present and my future. However, I have done feats as difficult as this before and I have succeeded. This is not the hardest time of my life. This is me making this trying time the hardest time of my life. I must persevere.

Pre-Exam Insomnia

I've been laying in my bed for over an hour with the hopes that I'll be able to wake with full energy at 4:30am just like I suprisingly did this morning. No luck. I can't fall asleep because I'm restless.

I don't know whether I'm nervous about the exams, or if I am worried about not having the energy or the power to focus in the next day so that I can study and properly prepare for the exams.

I do know that I spent all day today studying Patent Law, and I cannot study more yet I am still awake. What is bothering me is that my eyes are tired, which is a sign that I am not functioning normally. Normally when your eyes are tired, you should be able to get to sleep.

Understanding the movie "Bee Season"

I just saw a movie called "Bee Season," with Richard Gere and Juliette Binoche. It was probably the smartest movie I've seen in some time. Below I have an interpretation of this movie, but you're better off seeing the movie before you read this because if you read my understanding of the movie, it might just ruin it for you. In fact, maybe I'll write the interpretation assuming that you've already seen the movie.

First of all, let's look at the characters. The father (Richard Gere), a conservative Jew who is a college professor on Kabbalah and Mysticism. His son, looking for G-d and truth just as his father is. His daughter, a regular elementary school girl who has a gift for nevuah (prophecy); her gift manifests itself in her being able to close her eyes and "see the words" when participating in spelling bees.

The mother, a convert, also has this gift, but she was never a vessel for it. In other words, she was never able to understand or harness the power of her gift. In her childhood, she never knew how to understand the things she saw and it manifested itself into an OCD-like kleptomania where she stole things thinking they belonged to her.

When she met her husband (Richard Gere), he explained the deep secrets of the universe, including the story of how G-d made a vessel to hold His light, and the vessel couldn't handle the power of G-d's light and so it broke into many pieces, and the purpose of the universe in our world (tikkun olam) is to recover those "shards of glass" as a metaphor for the broken pieces of the vessel that couldn't handle G-dly light. I'm highly simplifying the story; people spend their whole lives immersing themselves in the Torah to get even a glimpse of an understanding of this story and the meanings of it all.

Needless to say, the mother took the whole concept of tikkun olam -- literally, fixing the world by restoring the vessel so that it can hold the G-dly light -- and she understood it literally. So she started breaking into people's houses and stealing little pieces of glass and jewelry -- the "shards of glass" so that it can hold "the light" as being literally light instead of the metaphor regarding G-dly light that Richard Gere was talking about when he told her the story. You could say that she herself was the broken vessel, given the gift of prophesy, but she couldn't handle the gift and so it broke her and fragmented her life into many pieces.

The interesting thing that happened in the movie is that the mother, tormented with this gift, saw that her daughter also saw things, and she had this gift also. It made her cry as we saw on multiple occasions in the movie where she put her daughter to sleep each night.

The more the daughter got better at using the visions to win each spelling bee, the worse the mother became with her kleptomania. You could say one inspired the other. Once the mother went to the hospital when she was caught collecting all the stolen pieces of jewelry and glass, the daughter made the connection that her mothers disease had to do with her spelling bee, although the daughter didn't quite understand the connection. Once she learned that her mother was sick, she thought all the way until the end of the movie before she threw the spelling bee that she had to win the spelling bee to make her mother better and to bring her family back together again.

As a side plot, her father noticed that she had the gift, and so being the Kabbalah and mysticism teacher, he started to teach her the Abulafia method for permutating letters, a method of spiritual awakening where the person as a result achieves a deep connection with G-d akin to prophesy, causing their whole body to shake and tremble from their experience. Before the final spelling bee, after the mother was already hospitalized, the daughter practiced the Abulafia method and achieved the level of prophecy. When she awoke from the experience, she experienced visual distortions.

All through the movie, her father would tell her to "speak the words of G-d and let G-d run through you when you stand there on the stage and you do what you do at the spelling bees." At the final moment in the national championship spelling bee competition, after the girl reached the level of prophecy from her Abulafia experience the night before, she realized that just because she was given an ability and a spiritual gift does not mean that it was G-d's will for her to use it. Had she used the gift which was tempting her to win the competition, she realized that her mother would have continued to be sick, and her family would have broken apart. However, abstaining from using the gift and throwing the spelling competition brought her family back together.

The twisted lesson of the movie is that sometimes we are given gifts and powers that we may or may not be vessels for. If we are not a proper vessel for this energy (G-dly light), then it will manifest itself in ways that can fragment and destroy us. However, even if we are "a vessel for the light," a.k.a., even if we are able to harness and take hold of the power / the light / the gift / the energy -- I'm referring to the same gift -- that does not mean that it is G-d will for us to use it. Sometimes it is better to live in the real world, rather than indulge in the spiritual candy we are given. In other words, just because we can do something special doesn't mean that we necessarily should do it. Just because we are given a gift doesn't mean we are supposed to use it. This is the lesson from the movie as I understand it.

One Exam Down, Three To Go

Last night was my Attorney Practice final, a monster of an exam. Part one was 65 hypothetical questions with paragraphs of data to take in before the question at the end of the hypo asking for a short answer or a yes or no or some date. Part two was short essay, and part three was a long fact pattern with nine essay questions.

I was glued to the clock making sure I didn't fall behind schedule, or else I would never finish the exam. Half way through the first half of part one, I didn't think I would make it -- somehow, through an adrenaline rush, I finished right on time.

I feel that without the massive amount of studying I did, I would have never passed that test. The test required specific knowledge of the issues in each question, and if you didn't know what was being tested, there was no way to properly answer the questions or the essays.

My next final is Constitutional Law, which is in just a few hours. They were originally back-to-back (6:30pm last night Attorney Practice, 9am this morning Conlaw), but there is a school policy against back-to-back exams, so it was postponed until 11am for those of us that had an exam last night.

Although all of my time this past week and a half has been devoted to the Attorney Practice exam, I've studied for weeks for my Constitutional Law exam prior to studying for Attorney Practice. It is certainly a risk not touching the subject in such a long time, and I am hours away and I have still not memorized the rules, but I believe it will all come to me in the next few hours.

I will spend my time memorizing the outline I wrote, and listening to CDs on the subject matter being tested. My goal is to pass this exam, because it was Attorney Practice that took precedence when studying because that was a monster of an exam.

After this, I have a week off to study for Patent Law and Secured Transactions. I am not so worried about these. It is yesterday and today's exams that I wanted to get out of the way.

Jaded on Shidduchim

I know that everything happens in it's own time, but. I remember the last few months I was in yeshiva after letting the rabbis know I was going to law school, I waited every day hoping to hear from one of the rabbis that they found someone that they thought would be good for me. Usually, when a bochur (a rabbinical student) prepares to leave yeshiva, the rabbis set him up with a woman to marry so that he will not go out into the world of sex, drugs, and negative influences alone. I was saddened when the rabbis never set me up with anybody. Then, after my rabbi from home and his wife told me they have started the search, again for months and years while I was in law school, I waited every day, calling them every day hoping to hear good news that something (someone) has come up, but those times were few and far between.

Each time I was introduced to someone, there was something seriously wrong with them. Either they had a terminal disease, or they had emotional problems which would cause problems in the marriage. If they were somewhat normal, then they had expectations of me which I did not meet because I was either too religious or not religious enough. These were the issues.

Lately, I have been jaded by 1) the lack of women I've been meeting, and 2) the lack of quality of the women I have been introduced to when once every six or seven months they call me up to tell me that they have found the perfect girl for me.

I would say that most of all, I am lonely, and I am no longer buying the pitch that "if you are religious and you are a good person, G-d will set up a shidduch for you." I don't know if I believe that there are good quality women here in the religious world, and if so, I don't believe that I will be introduced to them. Therefore, I have lost my desire to date and to continue on this shidduch path. I am no longer expecting anything grand to come from these shidduchim, and if I am to find a wife, I fear that I will have to step on my rabbi and his wife who have been trying tirelessly to find a wife for me and I will have to find one on my own.

I do not plan on doing this until after I pass my bar, however. I feel that giving them five or six years of my youth is a significant amount of time, and as of now, I am no longer twenty-three years old, but now I am twenty-eight and nothing has happened when it comes to shidduchim. This is funny because the main reason I committed to becoming religious was because I believed that through being religious, I would be able to find a good wife.

I am feeling jaded, and I no longer believe this is true.

Father as the Child in the Family

I don't know who is the adult in my family -- me, or my father. I find myself telling him to turn down the volume of the television because the walls of my room are shaking. I find myself telling him to clean up after himself when he eats. I find myself telling him to put his things away so as not to mess up the house, but he continues to leave everything a mess.

I don't want this blog to be another father-bashing blog entry, but this is how I am feeling. Because of nights like tonight I ask myself whether I would prefer to live the unrestricted immature selfish and meaningless life my father lives, or the meaningful, yet depravitive live that a chassidic person devoid of fun and secular activities seemingly lives. I know these aren't the only choices and my facts aren't entirely correct, but I have a tendency to see truth as black and white rather than shades of grey.

Truth IS black and white, not greys. However, living fully in black and white is simply not practable and I simply will not survive in that world. My secular temptations and drives are far to strong to even contemplate that holy and purity of an existence. I am anything but a puritan. Plus, G-d DID create greys, did he not?

I took a bath tonight, and while I was sitting in the tub, I contemplated what kind of woman I'd want to marry. I've decided again on a modern-chassidic one. This is nothing new, but I am at the point where I want to stop kidding myself as to wanting a fully chassidish, religious girl. In my heart, I do want this, but the girls I have been introduced to so far have lacked the attributes that would make her compatible with me, namely they lack a spark of life, and the truly religious ones don't and can't relate to the temptings of even a kosher secular life. I am beginning to think that this kind of girl I am looking for -- a girl with a spark -- does not exist in the religious world, and that I don't belong fully frum in appearance either.

Anyway, my mood has changed in the last two days. I have gone from depression to anger. It is not a good thing to feel baseless anger, of course, but any change away from depression is a positive one. I called my father a "child" to his face this evening when he, walking around in his tidy whities, complained that 70 degrees in the house was too cold when it is around 30 degrees outside. He wanted to raise the heat, and when I told him instead to put something on and when he refused, I called him a child. This is after me telling him not to blast the television twice in a row. I'd also tell him that sitting twelve inches in front of the television is unhealthy, but I am not his father. I wish I had a father figure and not a fifty-seven year old child running practically naked around the house.

Kashrut in a Non-Kosher Home

My father has been kicking up the level of non-kosher food in the house to the point that I am beginning to get nervous about him using my utensils for his non-kosher foods and not telling me about it.

First it was the old non-kosher plates that began showing up in the house. Then the non-kosher food started showing up in the refrigerator. Then he started cooking non-cholov yisroel but kosher popcorn in the cholov-yisroel milchig microwave. Then he bought a steak with my brother and wanted to cook it in the kosher stove; I stopped him after an argument. Then he bought his own microwave and more non-kosher food has poured into the house to the point that I need to be checking hechures (kosher certification symbols) each time I pick something out of the refrigerator. Then my coffee cups began showing up in my sink without me using them. He promises me that only soy milk was used in them and not the milk he has in the refrigerator which I won't drink.

Most recently, tonight he wanted to use my can opener to open his cans of pork and beans. "What can be non-kosher about them?" he asked. When I told him that a can opener costs seventy-five cents and he could buy one at any store, he got his keys and just walked out of the house into the rain. I think he is going to buy a can opener.

Men's Chassidic Clothing

To the person who inspired this post, I thank you. While answering your questions, I also reminded myself of why it is important to dress in the ways that I was myself questioning. If you will forgive me for posting my answer to you on this blog -- I feel that it is important to share this with others like me and you who have questions about what Chassidic dress is required, what is not, what components are important, and what attention needs to be paid to the details when dressing, and why each piece of dress is important.

The karpota and belt are worn by a married guy, and I'm not yet married, so all I wear is the beard, the tzitzis, and the black suit with a white shirt -- this is on the days that I'm not wearing a colored shirt which chassidic people also wear, or jogging pants and a tee-shirt which you'll almost never find chassidic people wearing.

...There is no need for a black hat; a double head covering (i.e. yalmukah plus any covering, even a baseball cap) when you pray will suffice according to Kabbalah which is where the hat custom came from.

As for the gartel (the belt), some people just use a stretchy string to tie around their waste to hold down the tzitzis. According to kabbalah, this also serves to separate the bottom half of the body and its desires from the heart and the top half of the body. I don't do this, but when I am married, I will wear a gartel when I pray, which is the custom.

The karpota (long coat) serves no purpose except fashion as far as I know. There is a kabbalistic concept of wearing a silk robe, [and I don't know the reason for this], but karpotas are usually not silk, and some people wear a silk karpota under their regular karpota.

So as you see, the type of hat does not matter. The jacket is just a jacket as far as I'm aware and it serves no purpose except to look nice. The suit is just a regular suit, as one would find in any suit store -- no particular style for any of these things is halachically necessary, and as for kabbalistic reasons, which is what I think you are asking about, the important thing with a hat is to have the double head covering when you pray, even if you use a tissue under the yalmukah (don't let people see because it looks dumb) or a baseball cap over it.

If you want to get fancy, there is a concept in Chassidic thought of Chesed (kindness) and Gevurah (strength / stringency), where the right hand side is a manifestation of Chesed and the left hand side is a manifestation of Gevurah, therefore the right side should preempt the left side in almost whatever you do (i.e. put on shirts or jackets with the right arm first, and you put on pants, socks, and shoes with the right leg first. [You tie the left shoe first, but that is because the tefillin which one should put on every day during prayer is tied on the left side). Other than the tefillin exception, many people are careful to always eat with the right hand and to even look at people focusing through the right eye. This is extreme, but I am answering your question. In line with this, some people sew an extra button on the inside of their jacket so that they can close it with the right side over the left side, which is opposite from the way jackets are typically closed. There's a bit of extremist Chassidic philosophy for you -- but in some respects, for example putting on clothing with the right hand first, this is halacha (Jewish law) and so it should be followed. However, buttoning the right side over the left, looking through the right eye, holding things with the right hand are not requirements and are far beyond any requirement, custom, or law.

But more fundamentally, it is important to always wear the yalmukah (according to kabbalah, even in bed) before you start thinking about all the extra head coverings. It is most important (if you are not already doing so) to wear the tzitzis (according to kabbalah, to wear them all the time even at night, but don't designate the a pair of tzitzis a night garment or else they won't be kosher even during the day; just wear them into the night) before you start concerning yourself about the gartel (belt). It is more important to dress modestly in black and white (although there is NO jewish law requirement for this, it is purely kabbalistic and modest) before you start looking into karpotas or jackets. Any dark blue or black pants will suffice, and any button down white (or colored shirt) will suffice. Men typically wear a jacket (even any blazer or sweater will suffice) when praying. I hope I have answered your question.

Interestingly enough, by answering your question, I was reminded why we wear black and white. It is for kabbalistic reasons. I forgot this over the past few months while I've been ranting and raving about this dogma, I forgot that there is actually a good purpose for this. Being that in my world of law filled with attorneys and fashion-conscious people, I will continue to wear colored shirts from time to time, and I will continue to wear a tie from time to time (which kabbalistically one should not do because it separates the heart from the brain). However, now that I have remembered why chassidic people dress in black and white, I will feel more spiritual when I too dress in black in white, because I will be reminded of why people do so in the first place.

I thank you for this.

Fear of failure after failure after...

A bad mood suddenly came over me to the point that I had to write it down or just let it pass. It is 10pm, and I am starting to get tired, but what I wanted to communicate is the feeling that sometimes as a person nears the later years of his or her twenties, one looks back and sighs from the important accomplishments one has achieved in the last ten years. My story is not that supreme.

I feel that most of my life, I have been recovering from one shipwreck or another, whereas I would take on a task, work hard at it, and then through external factors, the task would fall apart and I would be left with a disaster on my hands.

In college, I spend four years working hard to get admitted to medical school to become a doctor. One day after years of effort, upon sending out my resume to all of the medical schools I applied to, I noticed that the school sent my transcript out to all the schools with an error so destructive that I had to withdraw all of my applications.

Then I worked a number of home-based businesses and multi-level marketing programs and I lost money on every one, even though I gave each one my best effort. On some, I even was successful in reaching the objectives set out for me by the company, and then the president of the company would run away with all of the money and not pay the commissions due, or he would dissolve the company and everyone involved would lose everything they invested into the business.

Then years later when I went back to school to become a doctor again after working for a few years, my plans were destroyed by external factors because it was at that time that I was beginning to become religious, and I learned that a Cohen (a descendant of the Jewish High Priests, sorry for the crude description) cannot be a doctor. No exceptions. I decided to stay in yeshiva instead and I became religious.

Additionally, there were many other factors in play at the same time, I was dating a girl who was religious, and I had no compunctions to drive over to visit her on Shabbos (Sabbath), because it meant nothing to me at the time because I did not yet know that I was obligated to be religious -- I thought it was just something nice to do and to be. For me, eating kosher was choosing to eat a dairy meal at a non-kosher restaurant. Before I became religious, the girl used to tell me that she couldn't consider a serious relationship with me because I wasn't religious. As I became religious, she broke up with me because according to her I became too religious.

Then I was hired by a mortgage bank who promised a high-five figure salary, but when I did exactly as they instructed and over a period of months I brought in the mortgages and built the mortgage business, the bank (my employer) decided to stop paying the salaries and started having "accounting errors" which deprived people -- myself included -- on their commissions, which amounted to thousands of dollars of salary that I needed to spend almost two years suing to recover only part of it. I continued to work despite the diminished commission status and the disputed amounts owed to me, and then September 11th, 2001 wiped out my business, which ultimately led me to go back to yeshiva for a few good years of my life.

There were many other occurrences, but I suppose the point is that I feel that most of my life has been spent trying to make something of myself, and most of my life has been a whole cholent (slew) of disasters and failures. I have not mentioned most of these stories because I fear that the stories I have already disclosed will certainly tell at least some of the readers from my circles who I am and my true identity, something I wish to keep secret so that I can continue to express myself candidly without fear of hurting people's feelings or needing to conform to someone else's idea of how things should be.

I often wonder if I had known that I would fail in so many areas of my life, would I have worked so hard to invest thousands of dollars in many businesses, would I have given thousands of dollars and thousands of hours of my life to various causes and to various employers, and would I have devoted my life to various ideologies that have failed me over the years?

My whole life has been one big search trying to find Truth, some comfort, and a little bit of peace. This journey has landed me today in my last year of law school, frum, single, and almost into my thirties. I wonder when these failings will stop, and when I will come home to a real life and home that I have built together with someone else, and when I can be able to say good bye to the fragmented painful existence of grinning and bearing one failure after another while I still give my all.

The question is whether I would have done everything I have done had I known that I would have failed over and over again. Then again, at least I can have pride that at least I went for something and I gave it everything I had and even though it failed me, I have the satisfaction that I never failed it, whatever endeavor "it" might have been during my past.

My only fear is that the cycle of failure will not stop and that I will never find a wife and that I will not find a job after law school and I will be a poor, sad, and lonely forty or fifty year old who didn't even live the broken life that his parents lived. At least they lived a family life by the time they were my age, whereas all that I've done is manage one failure after another, and all I do each day is fill it with subjects such as Patent Law, Secured Transactions, Constitutional Law, and bar review.

Finding a Modern Chassidic Girl

I had an intense conversation with my rabbi this Shabbos over the concept of being Modern Chassidic, although we didn't use those words, per se. I told him that it bothers me that some women might look down on me by the fact that I like to listen to secular music, or by the fact that I enjoy watching DVDs if I ever have the time to do so with my now ultra-busy schedule. Then to spark the conversation, I asked the rabbi if he himself would ever go to a smoky jazz club to listen to music and have drinks.

When he said he wouldn't personally go to such a place because he is more interested in other activities, he made sure to clarify that there are a lot of things that would not be violative of Jewish law, but nevertheless it would not proper for a Jew to partake in those activities. For example, it is not proper for a Jew to partake in activities where other people are getting drunk, hooking up, sweating and dancing on the dance floor, because there is a concept called modesty (tznius) where dancing in public would not be modest and thus it would violate Jewish law. On the other hand, going out to a jazz club where one would sit and listen to a performance would not violate Jewish law; however, he said it all depends on where I am holding.

Then when it comes to movies, he wanted to clarify to me that seeing a movie is an addiction -- a taiva, as they call it in Chassidic circles. However, there are Chassidic guys who both of us know and respect who enjoy a good movie. However, in truth, while it probably doesn't violate any Jewish laws to see a movie [depending on its content], seeing a movie is not something that a typical religious guy or girl will do.

However, again, he said it depends on where I am holding. There are many guys who while on an airplane will see a movie that is playing -- there are many Chassidic guys who both of us know who will see three or four movies on an airplane and their wives won't say anything. The rabbi explained that this is why it is important to marry a woman who is flexible and who understands that her husband just enjoys movies, or secular music, or dancing. He said the dancing, however, should preferably be done in private and not on a ballroom floor with other people around or in a sweaty club. However, again, it is all a question as to where I am holding.

Lastly, we came to the conclusion that it is probably a smarter idea for me to date a girl who is also relatively new to religion -- a baal teshuva -- so that she will be able to relate to my desire to see movies and to do secular things and not to judge me for my desire to do them. This was an interesting conclusion to our conversation. So, in order for me to be modern chassidic, I'll need a baal teshuva girl, because a "frum from birth" (religious from birth) girl might not be able to relate to my desire to see movies and this might cause miscommunications between us. This applies to many of the other topics I have been speaking about over the past few months.

Contemplating Being Modern-Chassidic.

It takes strength to find out who you are, and then it takes even more strength to fight everyone around you who wants you to be someone else, even if their intentions are good.

It's so strange for me that there are such strong forces in my circle of influence.

I've come to some kind of conclusion that I need to be more real about the kind of person I want to marry. I am feeling that it is difficult if not impossible to eliminate something that has been with someone their whole life. Three things that have always been with me are 1) movies, 2) music, and 3) mixed dancing. I am not necessarily attached to these things, but nevertheless, they are in my life and always have been. I am not sure I can enter into a world in which they are non-existent. I am open and enthusiastic about not having them in my house, but I am not so open to not having them in my life.

I must think about this deeper. I will contemplate my words over the coming weeks. Any feedback would be appreciated.

A Faithful Night

Tonight was a somber night where many things that were unresolved were handled and taken care of. For one thing, I ended the shidduch. This was a very tough decision, but when there were so many issues that arose, I felt that it was better to carefully evaluate the situation and to make the decision as if I was making it for someone else. By doing this, the emotions that would normally have interfered with the choices at hand were taken out of the picture, and an objective decision was carefully made. I feel terrible for the girl, however there were more issues than I let on.

You'll notice that I also erased the blog entries about what happened on the shidduch dates because I felt that it revealed too much about the woman so that if she would stumble onto the blog, that she would certainly realize that she was reading about herself. I didn't want that. It wouldn't have been wise.

As for everything else, I hope you'll pardon me for not writing and not responding to some of your kind letters. This, along with the school work and the bar review is leaving me without energy and without much strength of mind to even think about what to talk about. I wish things turned out differently. I wish things could have worked out, but it just wasn't the right match. I wish I were the person I am meant to be, and it bothers me that I am not yet that person. I have been having problems keeping to my study schedule and this is bothering me, especially because my schedule between now and February requires much dedication and discipline. Religiously, I am also a mess. I've been keeping away from sin as much as I can, but I have been slacking on the positive commandments, namely prayer and Torah study. I am thankful that the Sabbath is coming right around the corner and it will be here tomorrow, so perhaps that will give me a chance to straighten my path and refocus my mindset, as I am going over to my rabbi for Shabbos.

Is there a dark side to religious life?

I often ask myself whether I really know what I am getting myself into by being in the religious world as a Lubavicher. Everything is all nice and dandy when I am practicing religion on my own because I follow the laws and I do what I am supposed to do and I abstain from things I am not supposed to do.

I also look to my rabbi and my friends who I believe live religious lives. Like me, they keep Shabbos (the Sabbath), they keep kosher, they pray when they're supposed to, they learn the Torah, they give charity, and everything else a Jew is supposed to do.

However, I've only learned Judaism from my Rabbi's point of view and the point of view of my Yeshiva (Rabbinical College). What if there is a deeper, but darker form of Judaism that lurks behind the scenes that I am not aware of?

For example, on a Shidduch date (a date between a guy and a girl made by a matchmaker), when speaking to my Rabbi's wife on what to do and not to do, she was VERY serious about not calling the girl by her name because it is not modest. She also had all these rules that I had to follow, such as picking her up at a location that is not filled with Jews so that people will not see her getting into a car with a man (even though it is permitted for the purpose of dating). It is sometimes also frowned upon for the man to hold the door for a woman, or for a man to do any of those things that a man customarily would do on a date. Plus, in some extreme cases, the girl will show ABSOLUTELY NO EMOTION on the date for the purpose of not opening up until she and the guy got more serious about each other.

So while I find these details and customs fascinating, I am also worried by them because I often ask myself what is there that I don't know? There are wacky religious people who get angry when you talk about something that is not G-d related. There are people who have very strict stringencies on various laws. There are people who don't dress like me, even though my dressing is professional and modest. Most of all, there are people who are so serious about G-d that it takes over their lives and that is all they do. I love G-d, but He has His place in the laws and in the prayers.

Then there are the Jewish laws, some which are so restricting that people customarily don't follow them. For example, one washes his or her hands in the morning after a night's sleep (neggelvasser) to remove the impurity of the night that according to Jewish law rests on a person when he sleeps. When he wakes up, the impurity leaves his body but rests in his extremities (hands, feet). That is why we wash our hands (and some customarily also wash their feet) in the morning with a pouring cup and a basin that is near the bed. In fact, we are not allowed to even walk a certain distance while we have this impurity on our hands. This is all fascinating. Yet some people take this to an extreme and actually wash their feet by the basin although most people today don't do so. Other people cover the water in the pouring glass with a small towel so that the spirit of impurity doesn't enter the water during the night and make it impure.

These are such things that I know about and I practice because I know about them. But I often wonder, "What DON'T I know? What am I missing?" I am happy to spend my life learning the intricacies of what to do and what not to do in life, but I fear more than anything that my wife [when I meet and marry her] will be more strict than me (even though a woman is supposed to follow the man's observances and customs) and that she will look down on me for being the simple Jew that I am.

I don't keep to a standard called "pas yisroel," because there is no bread where I live that has that standard of being kosher. I don't daven (pray) every day with a minyan (the required ten men). I don't always have time to learn Torah. And I do things that a fully religious person would never consider doing. For example, I've gone out to a dance club, or I've gone to operas and musicals (in violation of kol isha, not hearing a woman's voice sing), I read and enjoy secular books sometimes to the exclusion of religious books, and I feel no compunction when I go out to a jazz bar to listen to music. I am often in places a religious person wouldn't find himself, and I wonder whether my wife will look down on me for this.

So these are my thoughts.

How to Vivify the Resume and Catch Someone's Attention

This is my first name in Chinese letters:

The problem is that it is listed as a female name. Any idea if the Chinese letters indicate that it's a female name?

My idea is to put my Chinese name on my resume that I send out to law firms, so that they can see that I have a connection to China. My goal is to specialize within the patent attorney field with regard to Chinese IP; specifically, to patent Chinese products here in the United States. I believe this will be my selling point over all the other dull resumes that will be my competition.

However, I don't yet have a Chinese name and for all I know, these chinese letters can mean "stupid American." So I must be careful what I put on there. I'd like to choose a name and have it done professionally. This one looks cheap.

"A Mood Apart," an artful description of manic depression.

In "A Mood Apart," by Peter Whybrow, M.D., the author describes what it is like when the mood goes awry. I'm quoting it below because I was moved by his words which were familiar to my experiences during the bad times.

We find ourselves stumbling in the management of a familiar existence. Nothing works as it should. Insomnia drains the day's supply of energy. Routine habits become a burden, future planning is neglected, thinking is slowed, and concentration scattered by intrusive memories. Through the looking glass of grief, one is reintroduced to oneself as a disorganized stranger, a person apart from the accustomed self...

The housekeeping functions of the brain -- the cycle of sleeping and waking, sexual behavior, eating and elimination -- are also disturbed, as chemical messengers lose their daily rhythm...

As emotional judgment fails, increasing commitments are made, often beyond resources and reality, but the cautioning concern of friends and family is swept aside or met with anger. The engaging, infectious humor is replaced by irritability and suspicion as mania enters full flower.

I'm tired from a long day of productive studying. I woke at 5am, and I'll be asleep by 10pm. It will be a long day tomorrow.

Light Sleeper

One more reason I don't like living with my father. He's a VERY light sleeper and anything I do wakes him up and messes with his sleep schedule. He gets very annoyed when I wake him up, so on days like today where I actually wake up early [this is a wonderful thing], I have to tiptoe around the house.

The problem is that I purchased a DVD player for the sole purpose of doing Tai Chi and yoga early in the mornings. I purchased the DVDs also and the yoga mat. I really want to start my routine in the morning with this, but it is not possible because my father will wake up. I can do this in my small cramped room, except that there is no space. Plus, I re-arranged our living room and moved the coffee table next to the couch and out of the way so that there would be space in front of the television to put a mat down to do yoga. Unfortunately, my dad will still wake up.

A Close Teacher of Mine Died This Weekend

Someone close to me died; a professor I was very fond of. She always asked me to come visit her so that she can help me out with my studies. I helped her say the prayers on the Lulav and Esrog last year over Sukkos. This year nobody bought a Lulav and mine got injured because it got swung against a wall when I was helping someone say the beracha (blessing) over it, so with most of the holidays coinciding with Shabbos (the Sabbath), I didn't get a chance to stand in the Succah and help her bentch lulav (say the blessing over the lulav and esrog) like I did last year. I was thinking about it this year and it saddened me that I didn't get a chance to help her say the beracha because I remembered that she really enjoyed it and she spoke to me about it all year how much she was looking forward to it.

But this year she wasn't around and neither was I. I didn't think much of it, except that I noticed that someone had moved into her office. When I asked her about it, she said that it was just someone that works for her.

This past week, I heard that she was ill and that she was in the hospital; that she had been sick for the past few months and didn't want anyone to know about it. She even kept it a secret from her students, and the fact that she was in pain never showed on her face.

A friend of mine, the president of the Jewish organization on campus wrote an e-mail saying that she was sick, and that she "was" a good professor. I wrote back an e-mail joking with him and correcting his use of the word "was," pointing out his premature prediction. It was then -- this morning -- that I received the e-mail back from him telling me that he used "was" because she passed away.

I am very sad about this, but I am not crying because I know that she's in a good place. She was one of those people who you can tell just by being in their presence that they are truly good people. I actually don't know how to handle this -- usually when someone dies, it is someone I don't know and don't care about. When it has been someone closer to me, it has always been someone I knew and I spoke to, but never someone I felt a connection with. This time is different; I liked this person as a person, and I felt close with her when I would see her on campus. She was a very kind person and she had a warmth that anyone around her could feel.

As a prayer, I ask that G-d take good care of her. I know that she will be in my thoughts for some time.

Musical D'inspiration and Technical Mastery

Lastly in this three-part blog entry, I wanted to mention that I have been practicing the piano for some time now almost on a daily basis. For the first time, I picked up a real music score, and I was able to look at the chords and the notes on the page and I was able to play them correctly, albeit terribly slow. But the SUPER EXCITING thing is that I was able to play it measure by measure! This is a gigantic step for me because I am beginning to understand how chords work, especially when it comes to playing a piece of music with a melody!

In the past, I would taitch out the notes (meaning, note by note, I would write down what letter it would correspond to) and I would memorize the notes by playing them over and over again. What I was memorizing were the positions of my fingers, rather than what notes were on the page. Memorizing the note positions by playing them badly over and over until my unconscious mind caught on and learned [the song, the blues progression, or the latest technique] was how I got to be the blues player I am today. However, this sight playing is quite different, as are learning the actual chords and knowing whether I am playing a diminished or an augmented chord, or a seventh; in fact, I am noticing that while my blues playing is getting worse (meaning, I am losing the natural talent and creativity of my playing which is what made my playing so special), my sensitivity to the notes is getting heightened, which means that I will be learning new ways of playing which will make the playing sound that much better.

I am not worried about losing the natural creativity, because that will be there always and it will surface once my technical playing becomes unconscious.