I am here. That is all there is to say. A message I got today what to disconnect from emails and Facebook until tonight. It took until almost until 2pm to do so. And so the moratorium, just like the ceasefires - has been extended to tomorrow morning - except I'm not going to terrorize myself by breaking the moratorium. I was also going to include Safari. I have all that I need to read and study elsewhere but with rockets blaring once again from Gaza, I’m going to at least for now delay checking things out but I will keep in touch with the news...

... a little while later...

It is really shocking! I just reread my prior blog posts from 2006 and I am in EXACTLY the same place of discovery I was then - save one huge difference: I gave up alcohol (again) almost 2 years ago. My last drink was October 22, 2012 - what would have been my sister's birthday. It wasn't intentional. I had no idea that day, even while at the restaurant bar having wine with dinner, that would be my last drink. It was the night of Obama's second debate. I say Obama like it was only his - that points to my allegiance at the time. I got home from the restaurant in a grey out. I remember siting on my bed, put on the tv and that was it. I woke up in the middle of the night in despair and fear. Calling out to God. I had only two good size glasses of wine. Maybe that was four glasses. Missed the debate. Scared myself. Even texted Allan earlier that night. Up until then for the past seven months I was busy drinking and texting Allan. Thankfully that night was my last text to him. Well... that's all there is to say about all that just now.

As I was writing the top passage in Y7 something moved me to pull out this blog. I felt like writing publicly although I realize no one is really going to see this. But i feel like it should be out there somehow. I made add back former posts I don't know. What is really really interesting to me is that the first post dated July 2006 (not yet visible here) is called "In the beginning." That is the exact title of my Y7 almost 8 years later. Except I've written as such: B’rei Sheit. It's a stunning realization. 

So where is the exact place I'm at? I've been called to study Torah except this time I am actually doing it. Previous posts in Y7 spell all that out so I'm not going into it here anew - except to say, in both media I came to the same conclusion: I don't know how to live."  Eight years apart. And what has occurred to me this time is that I really don't. I've lived a completely superficial existence. The values that were instilled in me were fear and guilt, accompanied by shame.

Now that I'm in Israel there is the added piece which is moving here to become fully entrenched. Here is the passage that leads me to this.

(This pertinent reading from Matat aish.com - Mayanot - by Rabbi Noson Weiss pdf on desktop - also in Y7)

The purpose of living in the Holy Land is to be able to connect to God more easily and with greater strength than we could attain living on the unhallowed soil of the rest of the world. The Mishna in Kelim (1:6) states: "There are ten levels of holiness on earth; the land of Israel is holier than all other countries."

For someone who is living at the maximum level of daat, living in Israel could produce no possible improvement. The children of Gad and Reuben were making no mistake. Moses and the elders who saw everything clearly in the bright light of prophetic vision approved their decision. They were maximizing their potential for daat by receiving their inheritance in Trans-Jordan.

In the world of today, the decision to remain in other countries rather than move to the land of Israel is a voluntary one. Whoever chooses to remain in the lands of exile because he feels that he can do a better job of collecting his holy sparks there is committing no fault.

But whoever chooses to voluntarily remain there because his standard of living is a high priority is going against the daat of the Torah and can be held liable for his sin.

Many Jewish people are in the position of being able to make it in Israel but on a much lower standard of living, and therefore refrain from taking the step of aliyah. If a correct system of priorities would place a person in Israel, where it is easier to form a more powerful connection with God even in the periods of exile such as we are currently experiencing, then that person is clearly losing out by staying put. His assigned holy sparks are in Israel. He will look for them in vain in the lands of exile where he chooses to remain.

There is really nothing more for me to say right now.