Agnosticism, represented by loud voices, crushed whatever chance of bloom we may have had.

At some point Joseph rose from sleep, his head throbbing with hangover. It was early, 4:36 am. He wanted to watch the sun rise but he could not remain awake for another hour. Besides, he reckoned the city’s grip held illumination tight. The sun, when up, hung over steel phalluses wrapped in chrome fashions – the sky mostly soupy. Five minutes of the outdoors necessitated another shower.

The most near star finally pushed itself into Joseph’s room; it was thick and shameless in the affection, waking him. In the room, sunlit sky blue and cracking, Joseph came to without the thick residue of sleep, awaking naturally, appreciating the large window’s generosity. He lit the pipe that lay beside him near his head just below the mattress resting on the floor. Sitting up against the wall, its plaster chipping, the charming effect of the tobacco’s inhalation worked instantly.

Today Joseph visits his neighbor, who lay sick on his couch. His face maimed in an accident, he drank grain alcohol until blacking out. For beer he would talk if you could find him. Nevus, his name, had the reputation of being nearly authentic, albeit broken. Joseph saw no reason to think otherwise.

The two became friends of circumstance, living near each other, sharing cynicism. Another acquaintance who never had money. Cash, at least the accumulation of it, was rare and fleeting. Enough for cigarettes, or enough for fast food, any amount, which could have been spent better, instead our drinking, alternate forms of participation. Rent.

Satiation draws you nearer to romance, which offers affectation. Having no money requires stamina – no romantic high ground, no insulation. Your work suffers and dies.

See the varying classes of our species and how they deflect their stations. The poor, dressing outlandishly, the marginally wealthy hungry for justice and change – they just aren’t rich enough. Economic classes superficially but at heart lie distinctions between varying qualities of exposure. Joseph swam the meridian, witnessing death, suicide, anguish, and beaten hearts lacking money exposed, more readily apparent, really, than past the thick walls of affluence. Money affords the privatization of suffering, the regard birthing stability of depression.

Bureaucracy humiliates the vulnerable. Without money your sores are exposed, picked at by the selfish myriads of do gooders hungry for authority, you become more communal, statistic-like. The dead eyes of those wanting to aid you waiting for reward and recognition. And as Nevus often says, “Who doesn’t have a fear of stats?”

This week was war themed. Kippur, Passchendaele, Spinal Tap (revisited, and it was funnier than recalled, but it too is war, though more internalized, both obvious and subtle portraying many layers, alluring for the seekers; therefore does Nigel state, ‘none, none more black.’

Maybe, if we come around again, they’ll explain why films manage love stories while portraying industrial destruction. 

We’ve just watched Kippur.

Did the director’s character really say ‘you should read, Marcuse’s: One Dimensional Man?

He did.

What of Festinger, his cognitive dissonance. Those relics of heady college years when we knew so much in our reckless confidence, and tore lives apart like a dark star feasting on binary satellites. How many times did we crack bindings, hungry for epiphany and never letting down the oppressed, opined heartily! How well we hid the lack of trying, the lack of trial and testing, the dearth of discoveries, under bigoted rage.

We stabilized with Levinas while Derridas tapped out morse code rap, entertaining enough and we were happily thinking that we thought; a lot too, about important matters. Everyone a shy recluse never implying what had seemed obvious. Kierkegaard, you’re so handsome, I just want to talk more about your trembling and pet rodent, please, come with me, I can hear you better in my bedroom, away from these other people. Later E.B. White satisfied. Right, right! We had been there together, you in socks, and invented scoffing. Didn’t she say you could draw pearls from any oyster?

Arrives Eric Hoffer.

True Believers.

The fear bit, especially of misfit-ness surely, but who knows? You could be me tomorrow.

Maybe freedom and power aren’t totally opposites, maybe they do belong in the same conversation. If you’ve had either…

Politics makes power productive.

Neither has anything to do with freedom, but in the context of a love story even war enraptures. Is this what is meant by ‘not to trust oneself until the day of death?’

– Pirke Avos 2:5: Hillel says: Do not separate yourself from the congregation. Do not believe in yourself until the day of your death. Do not judge your fellow until you come to his place. Do not say something that cannot be heard, for in the end it will be heard. Do not say, “When I will be available I will study [Torah],” lest you never become available.

Time is fluid and measurements transient. We see this with Bilaam who knew the time of kindled anger:

           AGADAH: PRAYING FOR THE DEMISE OF THE WICKED

• QUESTION: The Gemara teaches that there is a moment during each day when Hashem’s anger, as it were, is aroused against the world. One who knows this time can cause destruction by saying certain things at that moment. (See Insights to Berachos 7:1.) The Gemara relates that Rebbi Yehoshua ben Levi had a wicked neighbor who was a heretic. Rebbi Yehoshua ben Levi decided to utilize the moment of Hashem’s wrath to speak words of destruction about the heretic. He waited for the proper time to arrive, but before it came he fell asleep. When he woke up later, he said, “I see from here that it is not proper to arrange the death of a person in this manner.” He cited supported for this from the verse, “Gam Anosh la’Tzadik Lo Tov,” which he interpreted as, “Also it is not good for a righteous person to mete out punishment” ((Mishlei 17:26) http://dafyomi.co.il/sanhedrin/insites/sn-dt-105.htm).

A point in time occupying no space beholden to an earthly clock, instead, this resplendent bechor, (Tehillim, 118:24) “זֶה-הַיּוֹם עָשָׂה יְהוָה; נָגִילָה וְנִשְׂמְחָה בוֹ,” the Abishter’s yom, the first moment of our day.

Our noted place for modeh ani:

• And he said: let me go, for the day breaks (xxxii, 27). It is written, They are new every morning; great is Thy faithfulness (Eicha, 3:23).

           R. Simeon b. Abba interpreted this: Because You renew us every morning, we know that great            is Your  faithfulness to redeem us.

          R. Alexandri interpreted it: From the fact that You renew us every morning, we know that                   great is Your  faithfulness to resurrect the dead. (Bereish Rabah, 78:1)

This “great faith,” offered to the sleeping beast while the crown of (reishis) chachma is obscured from perception because of sleep, hence “arise like a lion to serve your Creator in the morning” (Shulchan Aruch 1:1).

The space dances in light as the electron cloud and resides in daled amos, the gap in the ה (distinguishing it from “ches”). This narrow place being our cleft in the rock (וְהָיָה (בַּעֲבֹר כְּבֹדִי וְשַׂמְתִּיךָ בְּנִקְרַת הַצּוּר וְשַׂכֹּתִי כַפִּי עָלֶיךָ עַד עָבְרִי, the portion of our influence, erev, the beginning of the day, turbid with mixtures. Here and now, Malchus, our shared daled amos.

As I heard from Rabi v’Mori, shlit’a,  “all is blessing pouring out from on High, except our teshuva, this is desired by G-d, and ours to give.”

Where rests Your anger?

Dark sonatas igniting

lava-like pools

drawn in a breath,

enmeshing,

swirled into the mix with cosmic fidelity;

let’s not ruin efforts with dreams.

Returning our focus to HaShem is as much an act of teshuva as is following the R’M’B’M’s given prescription (Hilchos teshuva), though their contexts can appear outwardly different.

Think of the times you have spent on a date, or out with your fiancee, maybe your spouse, and you are engaged with your cell phone. When you realize your action’s potential implication and cease the the activity (assuming they have not already rebuked you or broken off from you) and return your attention, your focus, to this significant other, that, today, is a great cause for celebration! Imagine how they must feel, the warmth and intimacy shared, when you’ve set aside your distractions for them.

There is an idea that everything we experience here is a kind of mirror image or echo from G-d’s Torah on high and that would include all the various types of relationships and feelings we experience in this world ranging from the love of spouses, the love of immediate family, extended family, neighbors, friends, etc.. Those relationships are a diverse array, revealing to us practically, facets of how HaShem relates to us and how we may relate to G-d. In truth, G-d’s great love for us extends far beyond human relationships including all of the good we receive from the effects of gravity to the limiting of sensory responses within narrow portions of any given spectrum, enabling us to discern.

The generally accepted path to this heightened receptivity, is through first mastering all of the Torah, l’shma, and doing so in a manner that effects your person, necessarily through yirah shemayim (Proverbs 9:10), and, to achieve that, humility (Proverbs 22:4).

Honest observations will show us there are always unknown x factors because we are dealing with an infinite palate of possibilities so the manner in which our Torah and our sages instructions can be employed will always vary and be unique, hence lacking humility, real discernment and expression is impossible.

It is a slim area on the spectrum to be honed in on in order to avoid being distracted from realizing that G-d’s love is REAL, no less than that we share for our loved ones and that the Abishter’s presence isn’t concealed necessarily, it is just too profound and intimate to be conceived of outside the directions given us in our holy texts. None the less, with diligent consideration and follow through, G-d’s love is vital, ever present, and yes, we can relate to HaShem’s presence as readily and with as much fervor as we do our human counterparts. Our inability or reluctance to do so is more suggestive of a lack of proper instruction and preparation than simply considering faith as an intellectual enquiry. However, since opinions do not require physical exertion, we might confuse our lack of effort in understanding deep matters as legitimate questions on hard to grapple with topics. 

The mitzvah to love G-d may first goad us toward this deeper understanding, since it begins with a command to pursue a relationship which may not have been developed, and then gird our resolve to retain and strengthen it as we progress and see more clearly what our roles can be in this wondrous space.

That is really no different than developing and maintaining a love for another individual. That love can waiver for a variety of reasons, but when it is valued in the proper context, and focused with substance, the mature and consistent effort required to strengthen in its shared resolve, can keep focused, the heart’s wants, on the given goals the deeper portions of our minds and souls desire for eternity.

No longer engaged,

instead frightened

motion and

lost;

still wanting

to reside

in a house,

the table set in mind

with hats and beard,

advancing word,

but they shove you away,

those pricks you feared losing,

the fall

pushing open closets

locking you into

dead worlds.

A remote sadness squatted on the glimmer of Margaret Sue’s eyes, and Bryan sat pining for her. The allure of M.S.’s awkward confidence, her shying away with insecurity despite privilege,  afraid, but with a bold grasp, as though a cat’s paw toying with mice and she would back away, fearing real independence, when suddenly facing decisions. He was not invisible to her and this counted for much but her needs required something he could not give her, a reason to stay behind. 

There is a fire born in the seams of a pillow;

a luminous sentiment,

breaking through the stiff fabric of routine,

emerging out of disciplined seas;

defining form in shadows,

living

breaths plied,

as effort, becoming work,

the occupation of industry’s muse

bound by no wall and

the verdict of (your) gorgeous thoughts,

runs free

as water

over lands’ new stretch.