Areivut, Et Al.

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Did I ever mention that I started a blog to go with my study course? Did I even mention my study course?

Probably not.

One of the things that resided in my mind from the very beginning of this adventure into Judaism was to follow the rabbinical path. Perhaps in the beginning, to be brutally honest, it was the vision of a kid that wanted yet another title.

Let's face it. I'm turning 40 soon, and that means to a great extent that if I do take statistics to heart, and I am fortunate enough (G-d willing) to merit a full 80 years on Earth, then my life is half over.

Gone are the days of college life (I "enjoyed" the military instead). Away with the notions of all the frivolous chasing of co-eds as a single man. I don't miss them that much, to be honest with you.

Now is the time of Hillel, in regards to myself, anyway. I'll give you that he lived to be 120, and that he probably forgot more than I will ever learn about the Law. But we are both starting out at about age 40. It can also be understood the desire to know what all of the tradition is about enough to climb on top of the yeshiva and learn until they were frozen there.

I had a few editions of the Talmud, and frankly, they weren't doing me very much good. I donated them to a friend who would be far more prepared to use them. I am too easily distracted, and tend to swallow the cake only to attempt to remember what the icing looked like. You have to start from the beginning, learn the "little things", just like they say in hockey. So for me, that means Tanakh and Mishnah.

The current plan is basically a tractate a week, beginning with Tractate Berachos, in Seder Zeraim. Each mishnah is read, digested, elucidated, and written up at my site A-B-C. There will also be editing and additions at Wikipedia.

With an infant son that will eventually grow up to need this information at a much earlier date than I was allowed to gain it, I can only hope that it will make his life easier in some form or another than having to go through the search "around the city" as I did in order to finally "find the gate."

Others undoubtedly could use, or would choose to have this information at their fingertips, and with the advent of the technological world as it is, I see no other proper way to address the issue than to just go ahead and get it up and out there, available for perusal and correction by the world at large.

I may or may not ever actually become a rabbi. But I will learn and share what I learn, and hopefully that will be sufficient.

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Catching Up

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So much has happened since the last time I posted to this blog.

For starters, I had to rip it all out from another account and associate it with this current one so I had everything together. Fun times. Everything is still in English, but we'll get to that in a moment.

My youngest son has now been born, Mica ben Yehonatan Vasseira, and that is always a wonderful thing.

As I mentioned before, my wife went through a conversion only to discover that she was Jewish in the first place, by birth. It is funny what families will do under duress to protect themselves, and I can't really fault them at all for the way that they were forced to handle themselves. Geneaology was the way we were able to put it all together. In one case, we had a picture, originating city, and the fact that the surname had changed. The city was a traditional Jewish town in Germany. It would be the same as claiming you were the only goyim on the 700 block of Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights.

As for myself, the old job went away, and now I find myself in a job I not only desired, but dreamed of. I work with libraries and books now. I hear you giggling. I am back in my software company startup mode, throwing all I can into it, because the company is good and ethical, the job itself is intriguing and never lacks for interesting things to accomplish. There is also quite a bit that can be done to make the software useable in eretz Yisrael, so that's a plus as well.

We have also realized that now it is time to make Aliyah. But that is a whole different subject, one that is addressed in my own personal aliyah blog. It wasn't quite my original idea. My wife thought of it first, after the blogs we had seen from some of our friends. So she started her blog first.

So basically, I decided that this blog has to do with general life, discussions, and observations of things not directly aliyah related, and vice-versa.

As for a family, we have become more observant and continue to improve every day. She keeps me on my toes, and generally keeps me straight, and in my own opinion, the whole thing is working famously.

I had some stupid title before, but I have changed it. Partly because the whole A-B-C thing lists me at the top of blog lists, but more that I needed a handy acronym for A-B-C, and Areivut ( the mutual responsibility that exists among the Jewish people ), Bitachon (the faith that everything that G-d does--everything that occurs--will be for the good), and Chassidus - (The movement within Judaism founded by Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov (1698-1760), stressing service of G-d through the mystical in addition to the legalistic dimension of Judaism, the power of joy, love of G-d and one's fellow, emotional involvement in prayer, finding G-dliness in every aspect of one's existence, and the elevation of the material universe) seemed to really sum my own philosophy up.

I basically got fired from my last job for reasons that included my being Jewish. I won't go into all of the sticky details, but it was enough that the people in political control basically didn't like Jews, and I was hiding it. I got discovered, out the door I went. They claimed "job performance" until I provided the Department of Labor my last good performance review. Their copy had been "updated", while I had an original.

Glad it happened. I couldn't be happier here. I ran the numbers, and I got a raise that has me making more now than the former boss that fired me. I also have a real job now.

Baruch Hashem!

Market Positioning

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I know that perhaps a title like this isn't the very best thing to use, but hear me out.

My wife and I formally changed our tags on Facebook from the ambiguous labels from before to Jewish. Are we Orthodox? Conservative? Reform?

And there are other "variants". We have Chabad, Reconstructionist, Renewal, Traditional... It's a soda shop of deliciously Jewish flavors. We aren't sure where we are, and we know we hit multiple points of the spectrum.

For example. I am primarily Chabad. I wear my kippah, usually hidden under a ballcap to keep those less Semitically favorable at bay (read that "my employer"), we observe Shabbat in a very stringent fashion, we have the timers and such, but no synagogue close by.

For the first time in my life, I managed to "score" a pair of tefillin via crafty personal budget manipulation, and my wife keeps her hair covered in public. On that note, I finally get it. I am now used to seeing her in the scarf, and naturally, I think her very beautiful (after all, I married her, didn't I?). At night, when the scarf comes off, I always say, "Wow!" It has a very positive impact.

With all of the cultural differences, I share the progressive forward thinking. A Jew is a Jew is a Jew. Sexual preference doesn't matter to me, and I have no problem with a homosexual or a woman becoming a Rabbi, and I believe that if one has done the study, then the title on the hat should fit.

However, I draw the line at women donning tefillin, just as I strongly object to males giving birth to live young.

My wife has converted of her own accord, and it is highly possible that she might not have even needed to. But that means our little growing jellybean will be Jewish by birth.

We have two sons that will end up having to formally convert (should they desire to) and in toto, three young potential husbands that are driving us batty at the moment. I spend a good deal of time trying to get myself in check so that they have a proper role model to emulate. I'm not always as patient and tolerating as I should be of pre-adolescent nonsense.

But seeing them eager for kiddush, and running around with their kippot on just screams that we as a people aren't going down. Completely, anyway.

In the end, we're simply Jewish. The tags just don't work so well.