36 toward the Omer

I told you about how things have been scary for me with religion this year because what people tell me I shouldn’t be able to know about God undermines the foundation of my knowledge of God

we were both waiting for phone calls while walking along Amsterdam and my voice kept rising in pitch and volume but then I came to the end of it as we waited for a traffic light

and I knew and said I know God is here right now and repeated it again and as we got to the other side of the street you said hodu laShem ki tov ki leolam chasdo

we kept walking as I agreed hodu lAdonai ki tov ki leolam chasdo using God’s name because it was a true praise what a kindness to have a moment of settled knowing what a deep breath

35 toward the Omer

Malkhut shebHod

In the Chabad synagogue in Moscow on Tisha b’Av in 2009 a group of Israeli children played games on the landing and one small girl with light hair started twirling and I took a picture

that kept her in my mind paused midspin with a soft blond halo around her luminous face, a beautiful girl child with Hebrew as her mamaloshn turning slow and free until my camera stopped her

the memory card she’s on is still in Russia because I didn’t search for it well enough before getting in the car for the airport and the apartment I subletted belongs to a new person

which is as it should be really since once she noticed me she said no to my photography and I have my ethics but gosh what a knowing little serene one what a breathholding moment

34 toward the Omer

Find that little root connecting you with the spreading branches and then you’ll raise your eyes and see that your waving fingers look a little like the fuzzballed antennae on top of strange birds

Lag BaOmer

After praying this morning I looked at the dirt path that headed in a direction I had not yet walked and decided not to head that way and was comfortable with that decision

unlike when you leaned forward to kiss me and I turned my head and then always wondered why and what would have happened had I chosen the path I had thought I'd wanted

yes, my decision this morning was good although there’s no real comparison because I really wanted to kiss you and not all desires are equal and neither are feelings about roads not taken

32 toward the Omer

I feel ashamed of myself when I wonder whether it is the moments when I feel God or the moments when I don’t feel God that indicate the actual truth about God

once when I came back from a time of doubt of God I knew that I had failed. I had been given the opportunity to have faith and did not have faith

and I knew that the opportunity to have faith was now lost to me because when feeling God there is no need for faith in God. Knowledge supersedes the need for faith

but now I know that this is not true because I have come to doubt the knowledge itself even when it exists and that, I’ve found, is the worst of all doubts

for before I just had to wait for the God feeling to return but now it’s here and there’s nothing to wait for and yet I wonder whether it’s just the way

that the air feels against my skin and therein lies the danger of being taught that God is supposed to be beyond my perception because then what becomes of my perception? Falsity

31 toward the Omer

rushing waves rushing water water
rushing waves rushing water water
rushing waves rushing water water
                       home
rushing waves rushing water water
rushing waves rushing water water
rushing waves rushing water water

30 toward the Omer

My first chevruta visits and we have a lovely time catching up but it goes beyond that to contemplation of life things and places and people. It’s been so long

that I don’t remember if we used to talk quite this way but I like that we talk this way now. During our first hug I notice our height difference

and during our second hug I remember that we shared a chair once for an Acher lecture and it’s from then that our faces ended up on the Pardes brochures

while it is only as we hug a third and fourth time at the door that I fully realize you weren’t here and now you’re here and now you’re going

29 toward the Omer

(During the fifth week of the Omer we recall the sefirah of Hod—translated both as splendor and as humility—and today we find lovingkindness and compassion within it)

Be kind to yourself in those moments when you wonder to yourself Maybe I am a Lamed Vavnik and then you think With that thought I invalidate the possibility

I don’t have a Messiah complex I have a Messiah, complex, who is as much me as anyone else, and I’ve made no attempt at saving the world anyway

(even though I dream of doing so. Oh how wondrous to just have everything fixed and all the people fed and no more spilling blood I’d just snap fingers

and sometimes when I pray I consider myself part of what keeps the world turning, like pressing down the knob on a salad spinner or treading a gerbil wheel

(although horrifying crap goes on here, the blood of our brother cries out from the ground and we step forward always forward, so maybe keeping it turning isn’t enough)

and I dream of prophecy, not just having knowledge but standing on a stage with my arms thrown wide and my eyes flashing and people Listening to my Message

(but what this message is remains unknown to me, I just know that whatever I will have to say it will be Important and people will Actually Pay Attention

because I know a lot of my desire to have them hear comes from a deep hatred of being tickled where when you say stop stop they don’t stop

and of dancing in a circle and the acceleration is now something beyond any of us or at least it is not me and I need it to end

there is a book slightly askew on a shelf not breathing but the bookshelf is in a glass case so I can never fix it but I need to

the righteous obsessive compulsive sees you throw plastic into a trash can says stop stop you’re tickling this hurt doesn’t stop please fix the world I can’t reach it))

28 toward the Omer

I’m not ready to leave New York I’m not ready to leave New York I’m not ready to leave New York I’m not ready to leave New York

I’m not ready to leave New York I’m not ready to leave New York I’m not ready to leave New York I’m not ready to leave New York

I’m not ready to leave New York I’m not ready to leave New York I’m not ready to leave New York I’m not ready to leave New York

Don’t panic you’re just getting your period Molly don’t worry it’s all gonna be fine it’s really fine you’ve done this before I’m not hush go to sleep

27 toward the Omer

if I’d watched my speech more carefully maybe we would never have gotten together maybe we never would have fallen apart but neither of these happened anyway