The very nature of being Jewish

As I live out here in the boondocks of California in beautiful San Ramon I have been making some discoveries about the nature of Jewish identity. To be honest, I still have more questions than answers, but the questions are starting to reveal a lot to me.

I've noticed that since I've been here I feel more defensive about being Jewish. That it is more important for people to know about my identity and that my identity seems to be tied into its outward visibility and to its proximity and practice within a community. For me I have always either been part of an active community or lived in places where Jewish identity was well-known or the norm (to a degree).

 
HAPPY NEW YEAR!

As we enter the 2nd palindrome of these generations (the last one was 1991; the next one is 2112), I wanted to wish all of you a very happy and healthy new year and give you all a one time catch up with Dave segment.

I'm now living in CA, soon to be joined by my girlfriend, Theresa. I have a wonderful job as a User Interface Designer for an internet software development company here in the Bay Area.

While this year was obviously a traumatic one for everyone, for me, in the end it has been one of my favorite and this is a list of what i am thankful for this year.

1) Meeting Theresa, the love of my life
2) The birth of my nephew
3) The marriage of my best friend, Barry to Noemi
4) My wonderful celebration of New Year's last year in Brazil.
5) My trip to Israel
6) A Passover spent with my entire nuclear family & my girlfriend
7) An amazing vacation in the Pacific NW, where I saw views unlike anywhere in the world
8) Amazing movies: Crouching Tiger, Shrek, Monsters, Lord of the Rings, and many others.
9) Amazing music: Especially U2's new album and their concert. "A Beautify Day" indeed.
10) And every other pleasant moment where joy and tears reminded me of this beauitful year.

it is also important to achknowledge loss:

1) All the people who I met in my life, who were lost in the WTC.
2) All the people who I will never get a chance to know due to 9/11
3) The senseless loss of life due to wars and feuding
More personally,
4) The ending of Vizooal ... my work family
5) Leaving my friends and compatriots in NYC

Well, I'm glad the loss can't be added up more than the pluses.

Have a wonderful New Years!

 
So I'm trying to figure out this dream from last night. The reason I think it relevant here is b/c it has to do with me figuring out how to find/make community. If there is anything you should know about me is that I'm obsessed with the makings of community. I even researched virtual communities for quite some time (to no avail), created 3 intentional communities in my time, and lived on 2 kibbutzim.

It is really the intentionality that gets me. To intentionally go out and create the kind of community that feels like home (another concept that seems to keep slipping from my grasp) is really to me the meaning of G-d. Now, I am an atheist Jew, whose only real divine belief and faith is in the will of people and their amazing capacity to create community. Neat, eh?

Back to my dream ...

I feel like this morning I had a wake up call from my prophets (read on in future posts regarding prophetic voices). I've been thinking aloud about my prophets, judging their value, their ridiculous pop culture nature, and devaluing them in their faults instead of doing what I have always done, which is to listen to their voices, instead of their human embodiment. Just for example my prophets are all modern day, having died in the last 60 years or so. The obvious ones are Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi. But there are others, 1/2 prophets who by their nature of walking the middle path (Buddha is not a prophet of mine), have both divine and profane written about them: John Lennon, Alan Alda, Bono, Bob Marley, Ani Difranco.

What makes a prophet is someone who inspires towards individual great thought, as much as creating their own great thoughts. They fight through their cult-of-personality in order to lead people in some way. At first I felt I should defend these great people, who in the end are as ordinary as me, except that the difference they have made to me is recordable. None have done miracles (though the courage of Gandhi, and the inspiration of his leadership is beyond my capacity for thought). What they have done though is speak of a vision. A vision where unity, community, individual creativity, peace, creation and love come together and break through anger, hate, and most of all fear.

So back to my dream ...

My messenger this journey is Bono (asI write I'm listening to "In the Name of Love"). About two years ago I had a dream w/ Bono in it. He was my companion for a short walk in a foggy treelined night time scene on a surburban street. I don't remember the content of the dream per se, but as I recalled it after this mornings dream I learned that my mind was playing a trick on me. Up till this morning I felt like this dream of years ago was a memory. I don't think this was delusional, but rather describes the impact the dream had on me. At no time in my life did I feel like I met Bono, though if he is reading I would definitely love to meet him and figure out how to befriend him. My dream had just impacted my mind so much that the dream felt more like a memory. Through our walk, we talked until we reached a corner and then parted ways. I remember it being a sad and hard moment for all and that I felt a real sense of loss.

At the time I contributed this dream to my feelings about my best friend leaving me. We both love U2 and well, he has been a prophet of mine for quite a long time. But last night the message was different. I was in a familiar city thave I had never been to. I was going to meet my girlfriend when suddenly I got diverted to this outdoor mall, where Bono was playing a solo set. Being the fan that I am, I'm not going to miss a chance to see Bono play an acoustic set. The set ended to One (and I think about "Legends" when Larry says that this song saved the band), and afterwards I walk over to Bono and shake his hand. He looks at me familiarly and asks me how I was doing since last we spoke. Since I don't remember what we spoke about all I could say was, "I've missed you." Concerned that my motives were romantic, his fear pushes me back a bit and he lets go of my hand. I clarify what I meant and he holds out his hand again, but this time I don't take it, I just walk away around the corner. From around the corner I hear him speaking to a friend about our first meeting, and his nostalgic memory of the event. Then I wake up.

This dream effected me so b/c it reminds me of all the dreams that are referencial that I have ever had. You know the dreams that don't repeat or even parody a previous dream, but are a sequel to it, or references it, as this one had. Its a strong thing when the mind makes subconscious attachments like this. It tells me that there is something here not to ignore. I have had about 5 of these dreams in the last 2 years, but none as strong as this one.

So this Log will be a search of sorts through this foggy dream to making my community a reality again. I hope.

 
I tend to get into the philosophical, when it comes to community building ...

I've noticed this in two communities which I'm just peripherally a part of. I don't really belong, b/c I'm not all that active in either, but people know me and recognize my name, and I contribute in my own way, but I'm not really part of it. I sit there and debate about important issues as if I'm in the community, but all it seems to do is provoke people to act, instead of provoking me to act. Some might say that I'm an instigator.

But from this, I've noticed for myself that no matter how different a community in structure and purpose may be from another community, its problems are very much the same. I've recently been in two discussions about the coherence and continuity of three completely separate communities and I've realized that they have the same problem. "How do we label ourselves as a community with a distinct identity and remain pluralistic in our values?" I mean the problem isn't that bad. I don't think that anyone in any of the groups would feel like they belong to the other, but it is still interesting b/c there are related communities that these groups could easily be a part of given their current course of pluralism.

Personally, I'm anti-pluralistic. I believe in very well defined lines. These lines don't necessarily need to be agreed to by all outside the community, but inside the community people must at least make an attempt to internalize these parameters so that the group moves and grows appropriately.

More to come, I'm sure.