Real Morning

I'm sitting here at 7:30 am, waiting for my coffee to cool off enough to drink. I woke up before dawn in a cold but artistically decorated caravan, walked up through town, nodding to the few other men I passed on the way. I recognize everyone, since the entire town has barely one hundred families and everyone here pretty much fits in. It’s hard to believe, since everyone here is a pretty strange fit.  It’s cold this morning but I just got a comfortable pair of hiking boots and my socks are thick and fuzzy. I didn’t get the boots for the rough and rugged he-man urban commando look. One week old and they are already scuffed up and muddy. When I remember to look up from dodging mud puddles and rocks, the view is pretty spectacular. How did this boy from Jersey end up feeling at home in the Judean hills overlooking the Mediterranean?  I have a second hand sweater whose sleeves get in the way when I forget to roll them up, and a baggy army coat that needed to be thrown in the wash last week. The coat is also not just for the image, since every year it becomes part of my uniform when I do  my one-month stint in Tzahal. I just finished my morning prayers, feeling good that I did it, but knowing that I could have tried harder to really connect to God. I have a few minutes to write this all down, in the cold yeshiva office. It’s called an office but it’s actually an old and beat up caravan with broken windows, equipped with three old computers and a new Xerox machine. This particular computer has a sticky keyboard and makes strange wheezing noises even when turned off. I am about to go to the local store, a tiny mom and pop operation, to buy milk and eggs for the yeshiva boys and to maybe get a little something special for the lunch I am about to cook them. After that I am going to learn Talmud for a couple of hours and push my mind as a means of trying to follow in the footsteps (mindsteps/soulsteps) of some incredible sages whose words leave me breathless and invigorated. At the end of the day, my mind is fried and my mouth will taste like too much tea.

 
Just thought I'd let you know that I'm having one of those mornings where being real is sweet beyond words.