Musings of a Sunny Day at the Lake

The sun is bright, illuminating my world. Its warm rays kiss my cheek as I gaze out over the calm cyan lake focusing on everything and nothing. The warm wind playfully whips my hair around my face. In response to the breeze, the dry wheat-colored reeds ripple and whisper.

Although it's close to ninety degrees and feels like summer, many of the trees are still bare, consequence of a late spring. Yet, the bald trees stand tall and proud, not allowing anything to mock them. They may not have their leaves or colorful blossoms yet, as the world expects them to, but they will, at their own pace. There isn't much the tree can do to hurry its bloom along; they are at the mercy of G-d.

Dogs yip at each other; their owners exchange friendly greetings. Runners sprint by, already on their third or fourth lap around the lake. They are people busy with a mission, while I just sit here and wonder what is mine. The ducks honk noisily as if to say, "Yes, go and accomplish something!"

But what? I'm not stuck here on my own accord.

Birds chirp and tweedle, a car alarm wails off in the distance. Water laps quietly against the shore. Cars drive by, their engines thrumming. Bugs click and hum. A woodpecker knocks rhythmically against a tree. A bee buzzes by. Fluffy white clouds of cotton float listlessly through the brilliant azure sky. Flags merrily wave from their posts. An ant scurries across this page in my notebook.

A cacophony of nature that somehow blends together, each thing playing its part in the big picture. And then there's little me sitting on a bench, reflecting on it all, wondering what my piece is in this big puzzle.

Fighting Reality With Fiction

There's an interesting story about a tenured college professor who was fired from her position when her students brought a picture found on her Facebook wall to the college administration's attention. Apparently, this up-until-now respected professor had gotten drunk at a party one night and subsequently posted a picture of that night's festivities -- herself in a skimpy sailor's outfit guzzling a bottle of whiskey. The administrators argued that in no certain terms did they want such a person molding the minds of their impressionable young charges. Of course the professor sued for her job, and for damages, with the argument that her Facebook was personal and had nothing to do with her professional life. The case made its way all the way to the Supreme Court of her state. Their final ruling, based on a study by some important researchers, was that Facebook is the reality that which its users create for themselves. It is the world that they wish they could live in. Thus, whatever was on this woman's Facebook page reflects who she wants to be, and the college had every right to let her go.

This story, or rather the outcome of the case, brings up many important points of how many people hide behind fake or virtual reality, mostly when their true reality gets too painful to face, or maybe they just need a warranted break. It doesn't have to be through the medium of falsifying one's image via social media. There are many ways that this is done: watching a movie or TV show, reading an absorbing novel, getting really involved in a video game, daydreaming, or some other form of entertainment that one is able to lose himself in. Of course, some of these things are healthier than others. They can be great coping mechanisms, as long as the activity does not become one's new reality.

Personally, the harder things are in my life, the more time I spend with friends, or if they're really hard, engaged in stronger modes of distraction. I can confidently say that the first choice is most likely the healthier one, and talking things out, self expression, is probably the best way to cope with challenges, but friends aren't always available or simply cannot always understand. There's also a limit to how much they want to hear you complain. But not only that, sometimes distractions work better. I guess it's really a difference between chilling with friends as a distraction versus spending time with them as a means to vent. I find that self expression is cathartic, whether it's talking things out, writing, or some other form of creative expression. Yet, some things go beyond that. They require heavy-duty distraction.

There is something to be said for being able to completely leave your reality for a limited period of time. I totally get what drugs and alcohol hold for a user (an occasional user, as an addict is another story). So in the way of looking for a less dangerous and/or addictive option, fiction fights reality pretty darn well.

Someone once told me that his drug of choice was sleep. When one is sleeping, he explained, he's in cool oblivion, unable to feel any of the pain in his life. The guy is now on prescribed antidepressants, but he did have a point, even though professionally that comment did seem a bit unstable. How healthy is looking for ways to distract oneself from reality? Certainly when "things" become the way we assuage pain it can't be good. That usually ends up in you relying on that fix to get to zero; just ask an addict, whether his addiction is drugs, alcohol, gambling, food, shopping, gaming, porn, or internet, I'm pretty sure he'd agree.

I see distraction as a coping mechanism. There's a limited amount of times that you can talk yourself in circles about something without being able to fix it. Although running away from it doesn't make the situation any better either, sometimes you just need to tune out and turn off for a bit. What it boils down to, at least for me, is that distraction takes one's attention, and the edge, off of the painful/challenging/harsh reality of real life.

To Each His Own

So, another run-in with the sefer-hugging, beis medrash-dwelling male relative. The discussion, distractions and s'vivah. The argument, well, said kinsperson claimed that everyone makes their own choices and can land wherever they want to place themselves in life. I said that not everyone can (or is meant to) sit in yeshiva all day cocooned from worldly distractions, especially not those of the female variety within the realm of Orthodox Judaism.

I've made the mistake in the past calling the B"M a "bubble" to the face of a date, as well as arguing that "in the 'real world'..." Yeshiva guys don't like that very much.

Really, what am I supposed to think/say? Those around me like to blame it on college educated liberalism. Others might argue that college education and exposure to the "real world" helps one to become his true self and break out of the indoctrination of the "yeshivish" education system.

I don't think that there's one golden middle path. To each his own, I say. Yes, the purpose of this world is as a corridor to the next, and we're supposed to find ways to become closer to our Creator, but how we should accomplish this is individual to each person.

I'm not you, and you're not me. My potential and my tafkid is different from yours. You're not Joe and Joe isn't you. If you did what Joe did, maybe that would be wrong, but let Joe do what Joe does, and it may be right for him, even if it's wrong for you. I disagree with the pretense that you must decide he's wrong and you're right, so that you don't get influenced by him. I respect your decision to sit and learn all day (ok, maybe not so much the part where someone else pays all your bills), so please respect my decision and my best attempt to do what I hope will work for me with the tools that I was given.

My challenges are different than yours, and quite frankly, I don't know what yours look like. I mean, to me it seems that you're almost on paid vacation. You get to be involved in intellectual stimulation all day every day, living with your wife who cooks all your meals and does all your errands and laundry, and someone is paying all your expenses.

You want to argue that I'm too open-minded and I let too many distractions into my life? Well, I have yet to be presented with the choice to learn all day, live in a place I love with the person of my dreams, and not have a care in the world.

I pursued a career to take responsibility, to help support a family one day. None of that is even in my control. I wouldn't need things to fill the empty ache in my life if I could've, like you, come home from Israel and gotten married within the year.

It's great that you know what G-d wants from you, because I sure don't know what He wants from me, and neither do you. Had He wanted me not to go to grad school, things wouldn't have worked out the way they did. I mean really, what do you expect me to do? Sit around and be a playgroup morah until a knight in a white station wagon sweeps me away to live a life of learning and taking others' money?

And it's a Wrap!

Not to sound sacrilegious or anything, but I'm kind of glad Pesach is over. Done, finito, nigmar. Eight days of family-time is a little bit too much. It's too long to wear that faux smile and be gracious to too many siblings, their spouses, their kids...too many relatives asking what's new and meaning, "So are you seriously dating someone?" Combine that with no carbs (aside from scrumptious matzah and some potato inventions) for a week, and I'm just about ready to call it a wrap, or a pizza, or some other food that contains real flour not eaten at a meal hosting the whole fam. Now everyone can just go back to their happy little lives and leave me to figure out mine.

What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger

When we say "v'damyech chayee," "by your blood you shall live," in the Haggadah, we're referring to the dam of meilah and karbon pesach; however, it struck me that this can also be an endorsement (or rather source) for the popular maxim, "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

The Jews went through g'henom in Mitzrayim, but they came out a strong nation, much stronger than when they entered the land. We go through so many hardships in life, but it is these situations that make us into who we are. If we are never challenged, we cannot grow.

Self-Esteem and Poker Chips

Popular educator Richard (Rick) Lavoie has a brilliant take on self-esteem. It is affectionately known as the "Poker Chip Theory." Lavoie purports that some people have huge piles of poker chips, and these people are undeniably unstoppable winners. Others start off with just a couple of short stacks in front of them.

Watch any World Series of Poker and it's quite evident that almost always when big stacks meets short stack, big stack throws his weight around. Also, short stack is usually cautious and timid.

Every morning we wake up, we pick up our stacks, and head to our poker tournament. A disgruntled word with a roommate, sibling, etc. robs us of some chips from our stacks. An angry driver or insane traffic, near accident, or the like depletes 3 stacks, and by the time you reach work, you're down 4 stacks. You may have only woken up with 7 stacks, so you're down to 3 stacks to last you an entire day. Your day begins in earnest and you realize you're right up against a deadline and not feeling very confident you're going to make it. Your ever efficient coworker offers to help you out and bungles her assignment, but don't worry about her because she has lots of stacks of chips to fall back on. You reach your deadline just in time and get praise from your boss. Up some chips. You break for lunch and bump into a friend you haven't seen in forever. You chat, she compliments you, you laugh over a shared joke...chips are piling up...When you get back to the office there's a crisis, but you have a poker chip reserve to fall back on and make it out of there without any tears.

To make a long story short, somethings deplete poker chips more than others. However, instead of avoiding such situations, we just need to head into the game stronger. We need to find ways to grow our chip stacks.

Living Life in Limbo

During the days before Pesach, we kind of live in limbo. With the almost Pesach-dik kitchen, no chometz in the house, preparing all we can for the upcoming holiday, we are neither here nor there. We’re doing all this hard work to prepare for what is to come, and it’s at the extent of our here-and-now. The thing is, it’s kind of hard to avoid that. If you don’t toil on erev Shabbos, you can’t eat on Shabbos.


So, most people may feel like this only before Pesach, but this is what my life has become. I’m living in limbo every day. I’m waiting for someone to hire me for a job; I’m waiting to find my bashert and start a new life with him. The only difference with my limbo and the limbo before Pesach, is that with Pesach, we know when it will arrive. We can make a schedule based on what we have to do before it gets here so we’re ready when it’s here. Also, the limbo stage is not indefinite. It does not become the question of, “Is this what my life is destined to be?” While of course I question when I will find a job and when I will meet my husband, I know when Pesach will come, so I don’t find myself asking if Pesach will come.


Living in limbo is difficult for a lot of reasons. Most people don’t understand what my life is like. It’s always the “It will come; be patient,” comment. I guess people don’t know what else to say, and it’s true, I’m sure it will come. However, you still need to eat the week before Pesach even though your kitchen and house are in the “not quite Pesach-dik but no chometz allowed” phase. I still need to feel productive even though I’m waiting on life-altering events. It’s hard to wait, especially when I feel so stuck.