I'd Like To Pass This Test Without Walking On A Wire

Moving to another country is no easy task. After six years of living in Manhattan, packing up my life and moving it half-way across the globe overwhelms me. Sure, I am excited, but, on many levels, I am petrified. What will my life look like when I return? To where will I return? If I return to New York City, will my communities still be here? Will they still welcome me home? Will the lives of those who remain have changed so much that they no longer include me? If I do not return to New York City, how will I create the communities that have been such a support system to me over the last six years? Will I be able to create a home for myself in the diaspora - away from New York City? Will I be able to create the professional connections I want? Clearly, the questions are numerous, anxiety-producing. I have no doubt that the next year will, potentially, be one of the most moving, life-changing, exhilarating, and formative of my life, but that makes it no less frightening, and that knowledge does not answer the questions that keep me up until 3 am.

While I like to think of myself as easy-going, I really just am not. I am a worrier, a planner, and, so, admittedly, the great unexpected the lies ahead of me scares me indescribably. Also, because I am such a planner, bumps in the road tend to throw me for a loop. As I get older, I do a better job of managing myself, reminding myself that, inevitably, there will be bigger bumps and the road and, additionally, whatever bump has sprung up will resolve itself.

That said, I still love me a good freak out. And, so, when I went to go pick up my visa on Tuesday and saw an expiration date of "13 April 2008," you can imagine I was less than pleased. I plan to stay in Israel until late May/early June of 2008. What good did this visa do me? Why had he started the visa immediately when we had spoken about the fact that I was not leaving until June 2007 and would not be returning until May 2008? Why would he not take responsibility for this mistake - why did he brush me off, telling me to simply renew in Jerusalem? I had taken the trouble to take care of this trying process in the US, so as to avoid having to deal with the process in Israel, which can be much more difficult. Now, not only did I trouble myself with the consulate in the United States, but I would also have to deal with the Israeli agency as well - ah, the evils multiply.

I became consumed with frustration - completely unable to focus. Compounding this frustration were other frustrations with work, with friends - not the best day. I called my mom in the cab on the way home and told her the story, told her about some other frustrations, and just generally vented. We spoke for about ten minutes and then parted ways. I hung up the phone with a furrowed brow, no less frustrated, still stirring in my anger. After about a minute, my cab driver stopped at a red light, turned around to look at me, smiled a huge smile and said, "It's a beautiful evening, right?"

How could I not have noticed? How did I let myself get so consumed that I forgot to live in the moment? I had missed the breaking of spring! The evening was gorgeous: blue sky, mild temperatures, happy people walking around coat-less for the first time in a long while. And I had missed it. So busy running ahead of myself, worrying about a difficult situation that was over a year away (i.e., the renewal of my visa), I had failed to appreciate the present.

"YES!" I said, "YES it is. It's a beautiful evening. THANK YOU!" I answered emphatically.

I am positive my cabdriver heard my conversation with my mother. What impressed me was his presence of mind to refocus my energies. Instead of letting me dwell, he brought me back into the moment, into the moment where I smiled, looked out the cab window and realized how lucky I am to live in the best city in the world, on the best day in the world.

Everyday has to be the best day of my life. At the risk of sounding tragically cliche, every moment can be the last. The tragedies at Virginia Tech last week remind us how brief the present can be. Thirty-two lives snuffed out long before their intended end - so many potentials unrealized. So many students went to class that morning thinking about the things they would do that afternoon. The opportunity to accomplish those goals was taken away when their lives were stolen.

This made me wonder - what would I do if I knew this moment was my last? What would I say? Who would I call? What would I worry about? Would I really worry about a completely resolvable visa situation?

Funny how quickly things fall into perspective.

So, as I embark upon two journeys- a journey across the world and a journey into the rabbinate - I will remember that cabdriver. I will remember to keep perspective, and I will draw strength from his simple, non-condescending adjustment of my perspective - which was so clearly out of whack.

It was a beautiful evening; the most beautiful of them all because I refocused, remembered to live in the present, to appreciate.

Oh, Jerusalem!

The following is the introduction I wrote to the participants in my family's seder this year:

Particularly poignant for me this year are the last words we say during our Passover seder, "B'shanah ha'ba'ah b'yerushalayim - next year in Jerusalem." These words have actual implication in my life. Next year, for the first time in 23 years - excepting the one year where I made the terrible mistake of staying in New York, [away from my family,] for seder - I will not be at this table. Rather, I will observe Passover with my classmates in Jerusalem. Literally, next year in Jerusalem.

But this concept of "next year in Jerusalem" really had me thinking pre-seder. Interestingly, the first time I could take these words literally, I began thinking about the bigger philosophical implications of saying "next year in Jerusalem," even if one might not be physically present in Israel the following year. Where is my Jerusalem, I thought. What is my Jerusalem?

Most of you sitting around this table will not be physically present in Jerusalem, Israel next year, but, perhaps, over the course of the year, you will find your own Jerusalem. What does Jerusalem mean to our people? It is our Mecca, our meeting point, our coming home, and our haven. It is a place where we live as our best selves, as the most whole Jews we can be. Do I think that has to happen in Israel? Certainly not. Perhaps, the goal of uttering these words to ourselves at the end of each seder is to remind ourselves to take the lessons of the Passover seder away from our table and carry them with us until the following year.

We were slaves in Egypt, and now we are free. Yet, how easy is it to forget that we are free - to take for granted the blessings of freedom? How often do we get so entwined in the business of our days that we enslave ourselves? And, so, we should ask - how can we live each day so that we find our own Jerusalem? How can we live each day paying tribute to the freedom that is ours?

There are others who still endure the slavery that we will retell tonight. In Darfur, genocide is obliterating a people. In the United States, those with no access to education, health insurance, and a living wage remain enslaved. Across the globe, an environment has been taken hostage by inhabitants who do not appreciate the environment they have been given - polluting the air with carbon dioxide and fossil fuel emitions. Tonight, as we quest towards our own Jerusalems - towards our own freedom, we remember those without that luxury.

B'shanah ha'ba'ah b'Yerushalayim.

Next year, in your Jerusalem.

Ken yehi ratzon.

May it be God's will.