Space and Time

 So Barry, Norman and I are taking a class taught by Rabbi Moshe Harlig, intellectual son of Rabbi Yossi, on the Kabbalah. Not the pop-style Kabbalah favored by idiots like Madonna, but the real McCoystein, so to speak.

Last night's class really blew my mind -- I told Barry I felt like Larry Kroger in the scene in "Animal House" where he tries weed for the first time and Donald Sutherland's professor character has him contemplating entire universes on the tip of his finger.

The lesson was that places, people,and time are all The Big Man's creation, and therefore not subject to the understanding we mortals have. For example, in the Torah it is mentioned that Abraham was basically celebrating Passover -- giving matzoh to angelic visitors -- more than 2 thousand years before the exodus occurred. Why? Because the exodus was already created by G-d -- it just took Moses -- being in the right spot and time -- to bring it to reality for humans.

We also talked about how each day has its special energy -- particularly holidays, and one's birthday. A secular holiday is a construct -- if a family decides, for example, to celebrate Thanksgiving the day before the Thursday, it's no less a T Day for that family. But Jewish holidays don't work that way -- you can't decide to celebrate Passover other than the prescribed time -- the energy is different.

Same is so of Shabbos. There was a tale shared of a Roman emperor who came into a Jewish house on a sabbath and asked why the food tasted different. Was there a unique spice? No, per the sages -- food DOES taste different on shabbos -- due to its powerful, crucial energy.

Earlier in the week, I spoke to my old friend Stu, who holds himself out as a funny, silly guy, but was Phi Beta Kappa in college as a Philosophy major before Emory Law. We talked about people, and how you can't get them to change their ways. Stu remarked: "People are like the weather. They just ARE. You may want it warmer, or sunnier, or cooler, but you can't affect that -- the weather just IS."

This actually jibes well with last nights lessons -- things, under the Hand of The Big Man -- just ARE. We need only to study and figure them out, and parse meaning for our lives. Simple. Ha. As if!

Another lesson was how critical it is to celebrate our birthdays. Again -- we were born to a certain mission, at a certain time, as a gift from Above. I used to subscribe to comedian Denis Leary's theory: "There comes a time in a man's life, where he knows, or needs to know, that his birthday is no big deal to anyone other than his selfish self -- and that age is about 8."

Au contraire, funny Irish Boston Catholic guy! Failing to celebrate is akin to getting a precious gift from someone, tossing it aside, and not showing gratitude. And in my family, we SHOW gratitude. The Ds well remember that any gifts they received were not released to them before a thank you note was written.

All of this dovetails into today -- the biggest secular day of gratitude, and, for us, D1's birthday. We will celebrate the latter TWICE -- first a pilates get together on our front porch, and later with 23 of us at D2 and Jonathan's house -- catered by Les.

When you accept each day, each moment in your life is truly sacred, and truly holy -- unique among infinity of time and space -- well -- you'd damn well better savor that. So that's on today's scrumptious menu for sure.