Tuesday, April 28, 2020

I still carry the little stone I took from within the fenced area around Givat Olam. It is in my pocket every day, Shabbat, holidays, etc. If I cannot be with Aargareezem, then a little piece of it will have to be with me, and this will have to suffice.

I heard Loreena McKennitt say, at her concert in the Alhambra, that a traveler just travels. The point is the journey itself (or "The journey itself is the point"), not arriving per se. Arriving somewhere, anywhere, is irrelevant. I am tired of travelling. When I became an orthodox Jew here in Israel, I thought that I had arrived. And then, after years of living as an orthodox Jew, I felt restless, I felt the yen to travel and I realized that being an orthodox Jew was just a way station, to where I as yet had no idea. Then my path led to, led me to, Aargareezem. This is where I want to be but where I cannot be. Why can't I, why couldn't I, be happy in Jerusalem (as it were), as an orthodox Jew??!! Why do I feel this spiritual restlessness? I would be far happier, I think, if I did not feel it, if being an orthodox Jew was not just a way station. But much as I would like it to be, it is not. I am still drawn to a northern hill. Deny Aargareezem? I might as well deny my kidneys.

And what scares the hell out of me is what if Aargareezem isn't it either? What if I could get there and after a while, I feel that awful gnawing restlessness again and Aargareezem proves to be just a glorified way station? What then?