Silence Fades

It has been near a month since Silence fell. This deep dark seclusion and obscurity, held in a self-imposed prison, was created by a quite literal stacks of paper, bright white barriers to the world. The silence was so small; it could have easily gone unnoticed. All around, the world thundered and crashed, whispers cut and threats rumbled.

But this is the time of re-awakening. Of re-affirmation of purpose and vitality. I have written very few emails, but I wanted to assure you, all as I did my parents two weeks ago, that I am relatively safe. Despite hundreds of rockets falling in Israel three weekends ago, the vast majority fell in the south closer to the Israeli-Gaza borders. That is not to say many people were not endangered, as far as Omer and Beer Sheva the alarms sounded and people had to seek shelter on an average of once every twenty minutes. I consider myself lucky that I have not yet had to keep in mind being less than a minute away from a shelter at all times. To give you an idea of the range, the map on the right I hope will be of some help. I have found a few different graphs, on that I want to be clear. Some include the Iranian Fajr missiles which some show can reach the southern tip of Tel Aviv area and others the middle of the city. I thought that this is a much cleaner map to show you all. I never intended this to be a fount of politics. Those are nasty ugly things that often get people into trouble. The very fact that I am here attending school has exposed me to some individuals' criticism of supporting Israel, usually with qualifiers such as facist, inhumane, or backward.  I originally had written an account of personal thoughts with some support from recent visiting lecturers; however, this is not the forum for these talks. Suffice to say I am as safe as can be, and I shall digress to my boring days.

Although I had vowed to do so much more than school, those words seem to lie in shallow graves. School has more or less consumed my days, evenings and nights. While I have always poured myself into my work, sometimes I wonder if the payoff will justify the effort. Generally I like to write when in a happy and relaxed mood, as I've written before. I feel that I must admit this is not one of those times and I find myself constantly deleting what I have written.

This is the fourth week of classes; however, after the first semester we went right into finals and two days after my last final I was back into the second semester. Soon Passover will be here and we will have a break; although I foresee much school work being done, just not on campus. I sincerely appreciate the messages and support from you folks around the world. I consider myself very fortunate have had some many wonderful opportunities, and I hope to find a way to continue my travels. I suppose it is already about that time to start getting applications going. It's a shame I finish class in the fall but won't officially graduate until next spring. Unfortunately, I have no deep or inspiring thought for the day. I suppose, "I'm alive!" does not really count for much. So I offer you just this:

Water rushing down

Nature's thunderous roaring

Stillness in my mind