I believed it.

If you are reading this it means you are on a computer, not only that it means you are on the internet. so the chances are you heard the news, no i'm not talking about the credit crunch or even the military coup in Honduras, the biggest news probably of the decade so far, judging on how the press has reacted was the death of the King of Pop, a Mr. Michael Jackson.
Facebook exploded, Wikipedia slowed down, websites simply broke. People cried tears of sorrow, Radio stations played his songs repeatedly, the only thing on peoples lips was the passing of MJ.

Now, i loved him when i was younger (using the word love freely here) i remember rushing out to buy his album HIStory and repeatedly listening to all his other albums. I drank any information on his i could and i was so eager to see him live in concert.
However when the news filtered through, initially on TMZ, and then the major news sites my response was a mere "oh" i wasn't taken aback, i wasn't in shock, and i most certainly believed it. many people twittered, (which also crashed) and changed their facebook statuses (statusii?) expressing their disbelief that he could die. I had no such quandry, over the past few years i got over my MJmania, (i didn't even try to book tickets for his London shows) and just saw him as a person, albeit a very talented person. And just to let you into a little secret, people die, no matter how many albums sold, or how many moonwalks walked.

But its not only the fact he was a person, its just he was so frail, he was not the superman people made him out to be, he was clearly not the most secure of people, with his plastic surgery and his skin bleaching, not to forget the private rides on his train in his private fairground. Of course one must not forget he led a clearly unique life, robbed of his childhood and thrust into the spotlight of superstardom, i cannot claim to know what it must be like, not really having any privacy and having everystep i take being reported in the media, but at the end of his life, he really showed us all a darker, frailer side of him, of what all of us could be like if we weren't in control.

On the flipside there has been one occassion on someones passing when i wouldn't and couldn't believe it, earlier this year a giant passed away, a torah giant. On one hand the secular world looked at Michael Jackson as their pinnacle, at the zenith of all that could be achieved, he was talented rich and famous, everything everyone in the world seeks and craves. However in the Jewish world our gedolim are at the top of the heirarchy, they are the "people" we are in awe of, those we seek to emulate. I wrote people in inverted commas because if anyone has spent any time around them, they were not people like you or me, rather they were giants amongst us.

When i got the phonecall that morning telling me of this certain Gadols passing i brushed it off, i didn't pay it much attention, because he couldnt die, dying is too human, and it wasn't a person we were talking about it was a great. Greats dont die. It took it a while for it to sink in and when it did the world changed. In my eyes the world got a little darker. You see our Torah Giants transcend the physical, they see the body as a vessel to something more important, the Godly spark in all of us, our roots, our souls. We can live our life focusing on the body which is finite, or we can focus on and uncover our eternal side, our neshama. The Gedolim i have met around the world have an aura, not because we place one on them but because they actually have one, their soul shines through. I will never forget meeting one Gadol HaDor in Bnei Brak and being lost in his eyes, they gateway to his eternal soul, the connection to the infinite. When these people die, we can't believe it because the spiritual doesnt end, its meant to live forever and we all know that.

When people spend their lives living in the physical, no matter how good they are, be it at singing, dancing, basketball etc. they remain physical, they are breakable, they are limited. They die quite easily.

In the Torah world children dont trade football stickers or baseball cards, our children don't grow up wanting to be Ronaldo or A-Rod. Our childrens superheros are the great Rabbis of our religion, the ones who defy all odds, and make a kinyan in the limitless, acquire Torah. We revere those who were in control their whole life, of body and soul, they controlled the body to shackle it, to restrain its animalistic desires. They sought to let their soul shine through, because given free reign the soul can take us to greater levels that any of us can imagine. The soul can take us, if we let it, to those lofty reaches where we can live forever.

Time is of the essence

So two blogs in two days, I'm on a roll!
Recently I've been thinking about time, what I do to fill it, how not to waste it etc.
Not too long ago I read an article about Rabbi Avigdor Miller zt"l and one of the points it kept on pressing was how precious time was to him. He was real with the fact that time runs out, one day, any day. And what we have to do is maximise it when we have it.
Its a scary thought, but one of my best friends was zocheh to be close to Rabbi Noach Weinberg zt"l and he used to quote him the whole time saying "procrastination is death" and of course he's not wrong, when we don't use our time productively we may aswell be dead, because we don't have the opportunity to use it productively when we are gone.
It has helped, I have stopped reading fiction, have cut down my tv viewing, tried to use my time to learn more, but obviously I'm nowhere near optimum time usage, but we'll get there one day!

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Greatness

On a major coach ride at the moment, so been doing a lot of pondering. Rambam lays down the basics of Jewish Philosophy in his Perush Mishnayos (ch. 8) and in it he comes to a conclusion, that the world was created for mankind, and in specific it was created for us to become wise. I have thrown it around a bit and someone in the Beis the other night said "well yeah, G-d knows everything and in our mission to be like Him we should strive to know it all."
That line kinda lit a fire under my ass, and I've been obsessed with it, I just want to read and watch and learn anything, I want to know it all, and not just kodesh but also chol, its all about reading.
But I guess you have to do it right, there's no point studying non stop because you'll just become a veg, so its gotta be done slowly.
Its nuts, but I kinda get upset when people waste time, but I waste time, I'm a king of timewasting, but I need the constant reminder, so this shabbat just gone there was a mishna in pirkei avot that mentioned the type of people one should be around (its the third perek, more than that I can't say) and it said pretty much hang around with the right people, because if your crew is comprised of letzanim your just gonna sit down and talk about girls, booze and cars. However if we hang around those who are better than us, and we also have a modicum of anivus, we will learn from them and get the desire to learn, to know more.
And when you do know more find some other people and sit amongst them and they will blow you away. Find the biggest genius in town who gives a spitz shiur and goto it, be flabbergasted by his wide ranging knowledge and grasp of torah, and take that awe and turn it into desire, desire to be great. As it says (I can only reference the gemara in sanhedrin, 4th perek) it is better to be the tail of a lion than the head of a fox.
Peace and respect.
Fear From Love
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Crackberry Blogging

So in my first blog I made out I was a reinvented blogger, after many failed attempts of blogging I would make it through. That was weeks ago, and I'm still on one paltry blog!
Sad, I know, but I think I have worked out how to stay on top of things. The deal is that most of my inspiration comes when I'm out and about and by the time I get home I'm too shattered to commit my thoughts to the ether. But I recently got myself a 'berry and its got email, and with email I can blog on the go, whenever I find something I'd like to blog about. No more excuses......
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