To Begin

Google/Blogger blocked my blog almost immediately after I created it, so these first few entries were written earlier but only posted now that Google no longer thinks I'm spam.

I write this from 33,000 ft somewhere over the Plains and Midwest on my direct flight from Los Angeles to Tel Aviv. For the last year and a half I worked as a production artist at a TheHuckGroup, a litigation graphics and legal consulting firm in downtown LA, and online at thehuckgroup.com, putting together presentations for attorneys visually illustrating their cases. I left my job a week ago for a number of reasons, among them an ongoing frustration with always being on-call to provide the clients with whatever they want whenever they want it, and a desire to do something more stimulating than legal support. As I figure out where to go from here, I will be spending the next three months in Israel, partly working for my cousin Micah’s film production company, and partly taking time off and getting a change of environment.

I’ve never been to Israel longer than two weeks, once on a family trip when I was about twelve and then on Birthright in 2004. I never had the allegedly formative experience of a gap year program in Israel, nor a high school summer program in Israel, nor study abroad in Israel. Rabbi Daniel Gordis, thinker and family friend, wrote a book called If a Place Can Make You Cry. I don’t have anything remotely resembling that kind of deeply rooted emotional attachment to the land of Israel, and I’m curious to investigate what it is that inspires such passion. I spent my semester abroad in London, which was an indescribably inspirational experience, and there developed an intense wanderlust that recently awoke from dormancy to push me to quit my job and fly across the world. I also figured that three months in Spain or Thailand would elicit raised eyebrows and assumptions of slacking, while three months in Israel garners congratulations. I come to this with no real expectations, only the hope of finding something that will help me see what it is I will do next.

It is fitting that this juncture falls on the cusp of the new year (intentional as it may be: I quit when I did so I wouldn’t have to deal with missing work for the holidays). A new year marks a new beginning, grants new opportunities to move forward, provides a fresh impetus to explore and try new things. I stopped for tashlich on the way to the airport, appropriately on a bridge, shedding the last of the past year into the mildly pathetic waters of Balogna Creek before leaving everything behind and watching it get smaller and smaller and disappear from view. Among other things, I resolve on this new year to work on being more self-disciplined and productive with my free time, and I hope to share the results here. I am starting this very blog to share my thoughts with those of you who care to read and keep you updated on what I’m doing. Shana Tova.