What It Means To Be A Friend

Ordinary Inspiration

What I am about to write came from a specific conversation, but the ideas apply to life as a whole. Many times, people ask authors where they come up with their stories from, or they get impressed by a storyteller's imagination.

Good writers make good stories, right?

I'm not so sure about that.

Life is what makes stories. Speakers and writers just take the time to notice them and tell them over. But I think more people should notice such things.

I was in a sort of speech class where everyone had to give a two-minute inspirational speech. We were told that we should speak as though we had two minutes to pass over some lesson or piece of inspiration to the whole world. Yet so many people's stories were about death and tragedy and hardship. This bothered me. Such stories can be extremely inspiring - and those particular ones were - but I decided I really did not want to go that route. There is what to be taken from all moments in life, and even the most ordinary thing or moment or person can be inspiring. The inspiration gained from major events, like tragedies or difficulties, shouldn't end with and be defined solely by that event. It should be then carried on into the rest of your life, like a catalyst for actually seeing the things in your life. The ordinary days in our lives are not filler in between the major events. We spend most of our lives having ordinary days. Would you really want to see most of your life as filler? Our ordinary lives have a greater significance than we give them credit for.

That's why I picked something more ordinary to speak about: a moment of ordinary friendship. I think we - general we - need to learn to actually see the things in our lives and realize their value, even - or maybe especially - the non-cataclysmic ones.

Too many people spoke that night - and too many people in general say this - about how they regret not showing a person they care before that person died or they regret not speaking to their father for five years or not resolving a fight with someone or not paying enough attention to someone, etc. etc. etc. And I really think we shouldn't wait to have those regrets. Relationships should be treated with care, respect, and love, not because you're afraid you might lose them but because you have them now. When things are really great, or just average, we should still appreciate those people in our lives who we really care about, for no reason other than that we care about them. It shouldn't always have to be the big stuff that wake us up and say, "Hello you idiot, remember you care about this person?" Why should it have to get to that point? Why do we take people for granted? We never should. Not every moment has to be heavy with inspiration, but that's just it. Inspiration doesn't have to be heavy. It's just that feeling of, "I really appreciate having this person in my life. It's making me really happy right now and that feeling of happiness is giving me a positive attitude towards life."

Sometimes, the best moments are sitting in a car with someone, or walking with someone, or just being in the same room as someone, and not saying anything, just thinking, but knowing that you're with someone you really care about, and who truly cares about you, and how it doesn't matter that you're not having a deep conversation or going anywhere exceptionally exciting or doing anything spectacularly life-changing. At a certain point, you don't need those big things in order to have truly important moments. The importance doesn't lie in what you're doing or saying. It lies in the bond you have with your family and friends, no matter what.

What I really mean is - I like to recognize those smaller moments. During the speeches that night, I didn't like how everyone seemed to juxtapose "inspiring" with "tragedy." Tragedy can lead to inspiring stories - but we can't live our lives off of tragedy or major obstacles. We have to live our lives off of our lives and the regular people in them. Because to us, those "regular people" are the most special people we know.

Respect

Respect is like
The way flowers grow up
Towards the rain
And rain trickles up
Through the roots,
The way cliffs of the ravine
Reflect each other's majesty
In their clear mirror faces
So that each mountain seems
A hundred miles deeper,
The way birds sing to the clouds
In their mellifluous warbles
And clouds blanket the birds
In their pillow-like cottons,
The way the Earth circles the Sun
Declaring all its brazen splendor
And the Sun warms the Earth
Lifting it upon golden smiles.

The Ultimate Relationship

There is a specific pasuk in Ashrei that I have always liked: Karov Hashem l'chol kor'av, l'chol asher yikreuhu b'emet. God is close to those who call Him, to all who call Him...in truth? Sincerely? Translations are always messy. But I always felt that this pasuk was saying, if you strive to be close to God, then God will be close to you. But how can you strive to be close to God?

Tonight I went with my mom and my sister to a shiur in the Great Synagogue that, happily for me, addressed this question. The shiur was given by a Rabbi Gottlieb who once attended Shaalavim and is now on sabbatical in Israel with his family. He first spoke about Sukkos and the discussion in the Gemara about what the sukkos were that B'nei Yisrael sat in in the midbar. Rabbi Eliezer said the sukkos were really the Ananei Hakavod while Rabbi Akiva said they were actual, regular sukkos. But why, asked Rabbi Gottlieb, would we have a chag to celebrate living in regular, ordinary sukkos? How can we understand Rabbi Akiva's opinion in the context of having a chag?

Rabbi Gottlieb then focused on the Shemonah Esrei that we say every day. At the end of Shemonah Esrei, we say the paragraph of Elokai Nitzor. In that paragraph, there is a pasuk (also one I have always liked) that goes, "Petach libi b'toratecha, u'vimitzvotecha tirdof nafshi." Rabbi Gottlieb pointed out that this pasuk is originally written somewhere - I think in the Gemara but I don't remember exactly - as "acharei mitzvotecha tirdof nafshi." That would be translated as, "after Your mitzvos my soul should pursue." As in, we should chase after Hashem's mitzvos. However, in Shemonah Esrei, we don't say "acharei mitzvotecha, " we say "u'vimitzvotecha." With Your mitzvos my soul shall pursue. But pursue what? Rabbi Gottlieb suggested then that what we are pursuing is God.

In the first translation, our pursuit is after mitzvos. Mitzvos, then, are the object, the goal. But the way we say it when we daven, we turn mitzvos into the method. We use mitzvos in order to chase. They become the means to pursue something higher, something greater - God.

Rabbi Gottlieb quoted from a hesped of Rav Soloveitchik where he talks about what his mother taught him (emphasis mine):

"Most of all I learned from [my mother] that Judaism expresses itself not only in formal compliance with the law but also in a living experience. She taught me that there is a flavor, a scent and warmth to the mitzvot. I learned from her the most important thing in life - to feel the presence of the Almighty and the gentle pressure of His hand resting upon my frail shoulders." - A Tribute to the Rebbitzen of Talne

Torah, Halacha, Mitzvos - they are all important. But partnered with them needs to be a quest to become close to God. One should not go around performing mitzvos in order to have a collection of them, but one should do mitzvos because through Torah and mitzvos one can enrich his relationship with God.

This, said Rabbi Gottlieb, is how one can understand Rabbi Akiva's opinion. The sukkos can be regular, ordinary sukkos and still be worthy of having a chag about them. Grand miracles are great - we celebrate them on Pesach. But Sukkos is the holiday of our every day relationship with God. It is not about extraordinary gifts. It's about the ordinary gifts we receive from God every day. It's about our simple closeness to God.

I remember learning when I was younger that we have Shemini Atzeres because God wanted us to stay a day longer with Him on this chag. This idea fits in beautifully with everything I just wrote about. If we work on becoming close to God, if we use Torah and mitzvos in order to enhance our relationship with God, then God will also be close to us, we will merit to feel "the gentle pressure of His hand" resting upon our shoulders, and God will want us to stay with Him.

We can't forget that everything we do in Judaism is for this ultimate goal - becoming closer to God. If we keep this in mind, hopefully all the other nonsense everyone worries about (you know what I mean) will dissipate. Don't you see how that stuff doesn't matter? We're not in this religion to impress anyone or to be holier-than-thou. We're not in it to collect chumras or to show off our mitzvos - as wonderful as they are - to anyone else. We're in it because we are God's people and, as God's chosen nation, the one relationship we ought to worry about most is our relationship with God. Every time we make a choice, we should remember that we are part of God's nation. How should one with a relationship with God behave?

And another thing. The simple nature of our relationship with God that we celebrate on Sukkos is such a beautiful thing to celebrate. It is on this chag specifically that we have an added day, a Shemini Atzeres, because God did not want us to leave Him. Not on Pesach when we celebrate the great miracles God performed for us. Not on Shavuos when we celebrate receiving the Torah. No. Only on Sukkos, when we celebrate our simple, every day relationship with God. The simplicity, the ordinariness is what enriches the relationship. Not the majestic nissim and niflaos. To me, this is a model of all relationships we have. Family, friends - the best moments are the most simple ones, aren't they? Not the big parties. I'm talking about the times when you go for a walk or stay up late talking or read together in the same room and don't even talk. The times when you drink hot chocolate together or get ice cream in the middle of the night or get really silly for no reason at all except for the fact that you're with someone you feel comfortable enough to be really silly around.

We have to work at these relationships - karov Hashem l'chol kor'av. God is close to those who call Him. Relationships take work, they take initiative, they take thoughtfulness, sensitivity, and sincerity. But the kind of work they require is not anything elaborate. It's the simple every day stuff. It's the ordinary times people spend together that are the strongest treasures.

Life

Sometimes life is like a carousel. You hang on to your seat and get pulled round and round: a never ending cycle with the same scenes, the same faces flashing by. You become sick and dizzy of going round in so many circles, but you can't seem to let go of your seat. Your seat is what grounds you, what lets you know where you are. But it, too, is dragged in the cycle. Yet because it grounds you, you won't let it go.

Sometimes life is like a lazy river. You lie in your inflated tube and let the current carry you whichever way it goes. You drift without really getting anywhere. Occasionally, the river carries you under a waterfall and you get wet. Sometimes you like this, sometimes you don't, but you don't bother trying to steer your inflated tube. The waterfalls don't last too long anyway.

Sometimes life is like a roller coaster. You make a choice and throw yourself into something - a powerful thing which vehicles you upward. You're excited, filled with bubbling anticipation, like a pot just beginning to boil as you slowly climb upwards, away from the familiar scenes below. The higher you climb, the more silent the world becomes. You leave behind the regular buzz of the park and enter into your own universe where you're aware only of the wind, the approaching sky, the rumbling of the wheels on the track, and your own chugging thoughts. Everything else in your life up until now seems to have fallen away, behind, and you surge upwards.

Then, just as you're thinking about how you have to tell your husband, wife, friend, sibling, kid, parent about this wonderful, free, powerful yet frightening feeling you're experiencing, you reach the top of the climb - and then you go. With a giant whoosh! you're thrown into the ride, and you're moving so fast you can't even think about anything other than the wind in your face that makes it hard to see, and you try not to open your mouth so you don't choke on that wind, and everything flashes by so quickly that you hardly register you saw anything before you've missed fifteen other things that came after it, and you don't know how to make anything stop, but it's such an exhilarating feeling that you almost don't want it to stop, and yet somehow you desperately do, and you know that you're overcoming certain weaknesses (yet gaining others), you know you're growing strong (yet becoming increasingly tired out), you know you're getting ahead by light-years, and you know you're living in this moment, and no other moment, not in the past, nor in the future, because there's no time or energy to live anywhere else.

Sometimes you feel like you can't get ahead, and sometimes you feel like you're moving too fast. Sometimes you can't catch up, sometimes you can't fall back into step with everyone else.

Sometimes you don't know where you are - you're both too far ahead and too far behind, and you're amazed that such a thing is possible.

In all rides of life, what I find most comforting is that no matter how quickly or slowly I go, no matter if I'm ahead or behind, no matter where I am, when I get off the ride, I have family and friends who love me, and who loved me even while I was too busy in a different pace of living to keep up, or stay back, with them.

I find, so far in my life, and I think this applies to life in general, that the ones who are still there at the end of the ride - they're the ones who will stay with you during your whole adventure at the park (or, if you'd rather not think metaphorically, your whole life's adventure). They're there to go on other rides, both together with you and separately, and to always be there when the rides are done. They're the people really in your life.

So I suppose that at different moments in our lives, we feel we might be moving at different paces. This can be scary, or wonderful, or overwhelming, or exciting, or a mix of all different emotions. But no matter what, we should always recognize that we still have beside us the people and the things that matter, and we should make sure never to lose them. We should make sure they know that we are also there for them (to the best of our ability) - no matter how slowly or how quickly we are going.

It's good to have people we can trust. It's good to know there are people who, no matter how far or close, how quick or slow they are or we are, will always have that connection to us, so that at the end of it all, you can always pick up the phone or send an email or pay a visit, and it will be like you were never out of sync. Because you never were, really.

And it's good to remember that if we are making good use of our time, if we are making good choices, and if we are around good people - life is good. But sometimes it can be a wild ride (or a not so wild one). :)

Starting Out On A Journey

I am officially done with school.

Ever.

(Or maybe not ever, but for now.)

Last night was my last night as the Apple's roommate. In fact, it was my last night as part of TBA (what I nicknamed our apartment on my blog way back in the beginning of the year. I believe it stands for "The Best Apartment" - not very original, I know). But not even, because M.R. had already left.

Last night, the Apple and I talked a bit until we were nearly asleep (that didn't take very long, seeing as we were both exhausted from packing and transporting luggage). When I shut the lamp, I thought to myself, "These last few seconds before I fall asleep are my last few seconds as a member of this apartment. When I wake up in the morning, my time at Stern will really be over." While I was still the Apple's roommate, it was like school was still in session, even though there were no more classes. I was still a part of my Stern experience. Now I'm home for Shabbos and any return to the Stern premises will be as a graduate.

Truthfully, I do have one more night in my apartment at Stern. D2 and I are packing our stuff on motzei Shabbos and leaving Sunday morning. But it will be just us. We will be the last ones to say goodbye to The Apartment.

...And then we, and everyone else, will go on together to the next stage of our lives.

What's both nice and strange at the same time is that we're not saying goodbye to each other. We're going to be seeing each other next year. This is not like the end of the year in Israel when people go off to their respective colleges in various different states or countries or even continents. Those people you really need to say goodbye to. But not my friends now. We're still going to be together in some ways, but...differently. I don't know what it will be like but it doesn't feel lonely.

D2, Chana, SJ, M.R., and the Apple,

This year, there were struggles, triumphs, difficult moments, awesome moments...but you guys have been amazing apartment mates.

At the start of this year, I wrote a post on beginnings. Well, now we're all facing a new kind of beginning. It's the beginning of a path in a completely different walk of life. But I think we're not alone on that path. It's one we don't know well at all, yet we are not walking it in solitude, even as we are also all doing different things next year.

There's a song from the end of the movie Anastasia that I love. It's meant to be a love song really, but I think it can really apply to any sort of close relationship - especially a deep-rooted friendship that will help each of us face whatever journey we have up ahead.



As I step wistfully out of one stage and nervously, but not unhappily, into the next, I take with me everything my time at Stern College for Women has provided me with. In a way, I am the same person I always was, except I'm being that person in a different way. It's slightly confusing. But refreshing, in a way. It's exciting to feel like I can possibly do something important with my life outside of the comfortable school cocoon.

So thank you, Stern College.

This post feels somewhat awkward, but I guess some things are hard to say, let alone say with elegance.

This blog will no longer be the records of a girl in college. Now it will be something else. Perhaps it will be more important to me than ever to write about what happens to me. My life suddenly feels like it's one big surprise.

I suppose we shall see what happens come tomorrow.

Ponderings On A Rainy Day

I sit here by the window and watch the rain drip and slip and slide down the pain, so slick it is as it hits the world below. It's like the world is crying...or is it laughing?

There is nothing I can say, so I'm offering this instead. Often there is more good than just what is obvious. You may hate the rain, but the rain makes the world grow.

Don't gripe. It only fuels a fire too hot to gather round and roast s'mores.

You can cry, but then don't forget that tears come from laughter, too. There's so much bad stuff that happens, why not appreciate all that is good? When you cry, the world cries with you. When you laugh, we can take off our hoods and jump in the puddles.

Life is too serious to be taken too seriously.

Seriously.

Won't anyone jump in the puddles with me?